


Connections

by greygerbil



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 07:00:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 34,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10962117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Though Jaal has always had a bit of a crush on Evfra, their affair starts out as little more than a pleasurable distraction for both of them. It was never supposed to be more than that, but feelings are not, in the end, so easily controlled.





	1. Chapter 1

“This is my brother Jaal.”

When Jaal met Evfra for the first time, his big sister Orinna had a hand placed firmly between his shoulder blades as she pushed him forward for scrutiny. The Aya sun was sinking, bathing the room in a dark orange glow, and against the window stood Evfra, framed by the burning sky.

Jaal had seen him before, of course, on the news or in vids. He was no Moshae, constantly taking centre stage to inspire and lead in the public eye, but he didn’t play unnecessarily coy, either. Anyone who paid even a little attention would have heard his comments and speeches, would have seen images of him surrounded by armed men and women between the pristine white houses of Aya or in the lamp-lit, barren caves of Voeld.

Now in front of him, Jaal saw the details one missed in pictures. He stood with a straight back and habitual tension in his shoulders, alert in the way predatory animals were even if not on the prowl. The blue of his skin bled into purple where scarred lines furrowed his face. His piercing, inquisitive gaze turned on them as Orinna spoke. He looked handsome and distant, like he was watching them through a glass door and hadn’t yet decided whether he wanted to open it.

“The sniper,” Evfra said, after a brief moment of contemplation.

“You remember, great. He brought his own weapon, too, and it’s a fine one. He’s basically ready to go,” Orinna announced.

“We’ll see about that.” Evfra’s eyes searched Jaal, looking over his shoulder rather than at his face, where the barrel of his rifle stuck out. “Is that a kett weapon?”

Jaal had to shake himself out of his reverie. It was not every day one met a man who had shifted the fate of one’s people as drastically as Evfra de Tershaav had.

“Yes. I took it apart and rebuilt it with modifications.”

“I see.”

Jaal looked at him feeling foolish, not sure what to make of that comment. Evfra’s tone was rough, but he didn’t look displeased.

“The kett have more resources than we do,” Evfra explained himself, after the silence had dragged for long enough to make Jaal squirm a little. “Someone who can turn their own weapons against them should be of use.”

“I hope so,” Jaal said, relieved.

“So do I. Bring him to Olvek for a check-up, Orinna.”

With those words, Evfra left them standing and turned his attention to one of the large consoles that lined the wall.

“I can’t tell if that went well,” Jaal told his sister after the doors had closed behind them.

“You never can with Evfra. You’ll get used to it.”

-

Right from that first moment, Jaal had a crush on Evfra; he suspected quite a few people did. His history of building the Resistance from a gaggle of unorganised freedom fighters into a precise weapon against the kett made him a good target for admiration. So, in all honesty, did a voice as deep as a ravine, a face with beautifully full lips – even if they were always turned downwards in a frown –, scars that made him look a warrior, and the soft interplay of white and blue in his face like dispersing clouds on a sunny sky.

Those were idle and superficial thoughts, though, and while they always stayed, by the time Jaal had finished his twenty-sixth year, having been with the Resistance for closing in on two years now, he had long stopped expecting that his dreams of Evfra’s mouth pulling into a smile under his would ever come true. Evfra had more of a heart than people gave him credit for; Jaal was convinced that a man without one could not have been as passionate about his cause as he was. He suspected the reason Evfra didn’t share it with people was not that his heart was hard, but that he feared it would be fragile enough to fail for good if broken once more. Still, his walls were mile-high and besides, Jaal spent most of his time with Resistance cells off Aya, happy to get away from the planet of bureaucrats whenever the opportunity arose, so he didn’t get to work with Evfra a lot.

Then, Evfra started taking notice of him.

“I want to keep you here for a couple of weeks,” he told Jaal off-handedly, after he had finished his latest debriefing.

Jaal felt exasperation creep up. He’d hoped to get back to Havarl in time for his youngest sister’s first coming-of-age celebration and the prospect of Aya’s stuffed atmosphere of endless discussions and political negotiations was not a great trade-off.

“What do you need me for?” he asked, still a bit too curious to sound disappointed.

“Education.”

Jaal had no idea what that was supposed to mean. Had Evfra found him lacking in some way?

“What kind?”

“You’re a good shot, better than most, and I know if I send you out in the field you’ll get results. I think you also have potential in other areas, though,” Evfra said. “I want to see if I’m right in that assumption.”

Jaal halted, looking at him silent surprise. In truth, he had to admit he’d stopped hoping for something like this to happen. Wherever he had ended up before, he’d routinely proven himself to be mediocre, from his first year in school to his studies under the Moshae. He wasn’t noticeably terrible, but his teachers and superiors always seemed to know that what he had convinced himself was his destiny today really wasn’t meant for him. After half a dozen failed attempts to find the one thing he’d excel at to meet the level of his largely brilliant older siblings and cousins, Jaal was left with little but confusion about his future.

In the Resistance, he’d already been put in context before he’d joined. His sister Orinna herself had come here months before him and she was already doing black ops work when he’d followed. Next to her, Jaal had never expected to be much more than a simple soldier, just like he’d never been more than a rookie next to Akksul, or a distraction for the first woman he’d loved next to his older brother. However, Resistance work had been too important to pass up regardless – and now he realised that for once, he may not have been knocking at a locked door.

“I’d be happy to learn more,” Jaal said, unashamedly beaming.

Stone-faced as usual, Evfra gestured at him to follow.

-

Jaal spent more than just those next two weeks with him. Evfra now alternated between integrating Jaal into the command structure on Aya and sending him out attached to strike teams. Though he didn’t shower Jaal with encouragement, he could draw it from the fact that he was becoming a well-known face around the Resistance HQ. 

It was a cloudy morning some four months after that first conversation about his changing duties when Jaal joined Evfra in his office, wiping warm summer rain off his face.

“Rofra told me he can’t figure out the signal trail of a labour camp transport we were tracking off Voeld through the Scourge,” he said, looking over Evfra’s shoulder at a snow-storm blurred picture on the screen of his console. 

“I’ll let Feira take a look at it. Little escapes her.” Evfra glanced at Jaal from the corner of his eyes. “I didn’t plan for you to become my secretary, but it’s your fault for being more approachable than me,” he added.

Jaal had to smile. One more thing that had happened was that he had also gotten acquainted with Evfra personally, to the point that people sometimes spoke to Jaal first when they wanted something from Evfra. From errand boy to right-hand-man to bodyguard, people had given his position many names. What it really was, Evfra only knew; but Jaal thought it was, in any case, much more interesting than being in the reserves. He still wasn’t on a level with his sister, but it felt for the first time like people knew him for something else than his family name.

“Maybe Rofra just didn’t want to bother you.”

The look Evfra gave him told him Evfra knew Jaal didn’t believe that, either. Rofra _was_ a bit of a coward. In Jaal’s experience, having watched him so close, Evfra only came down hard on people who made mistakes born out of inattention or laziness. He didn’t get unnecessarily upset just because someone failed to climb the mountains they all faced dealing with this towering, viciously smart enemy. If he had been that strict, he’d have to be screaming at someone every hour of the day, every day.

One of the men manning the large console to the side approached Evfra before he could say anything else, clearing his throat to get his attention.

“The Red Ilev just went dark , Evfra.”

“Mark their last position. We’ll try to ping them in twenty-four hours if they haven’t come back online.”

Evfra excused the man with a nod.

“The Red Ilev again?” Jaal asked, looking at Evfra.

“Good, you noticed. Their leader Gemai is a careful woman.”

“Perhaps a bit too careful?”

It seemed to Jaal like they hardly knew what Red Ilev was up to most days. They certainly would have made the small, almost transparent freshwater fish that their team was named after proud with how completely they managed to vanish, but Jaal wasn’t convinced that was a good thing. Cutting all coms and trackers would make them harder for the kett to find, but if they got in trouble, sending help could be a problem, and with no idea about their position, the base could never warn them if something was headed their way.

“I’ve told her a dozen times that some communication could be helpful in keeping her people alive, but she’s set in her ways. That aside, though, she’s a capable leader and I wouldn’t want to cut her,” Evfra answered.

“Isn’t this habit dangerous to the people who follow her?” Jaal asked.

“It is, but I don’t have the manpower to wait for perfect lieutenants. I know her faults, which makes it my responsibility to send her where her paranoia is an asset rather than a hindrance. Highly patrolled areas, places like that.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s still a risk I’m taking. Any people she loses because of an unnecessary communication cut will effectively be people _I_ have lost...” Evfra frowned at the console. “But that’s just the way it is,” he finished, after a moment. “What I mean to say is that if you are a bad soldier, you will use a sniper rifle when you need a shotgun, and a pistol where an assault rifle would serve you better. It’s not the fault of the weapon that you lose the fight, it’s yours for not keeping in mind what they do best and what they fail at. It can help to think of the strengths and weaknesses of the people in your command the same way.”

The responsibility seemed crushing to Jaal even at a distance. He wondered if it ever bothered Evfra. It had to; he doubted any being with feeling left inside them wouldn’t have suffered getting a casualty report where they found themselves guilty in some measure for every name displayed. That was not a question he could ask him, though, not even after all the time they’d spent together. Evfra was not in the habit of sharing his emotions like that.

“What are my strengths and weaknesses?” Jaal asked, instead, to distract himself from the topic.

Evfra looked at him with one brow raised.

“You should know that.”

“I haven’t looked at as many soldiers as you. I don’t have your experience.”

Evfra cocked his head. Jaal’s argument seemed to be good enough for him.

“You’re too emotional, which compromises your decision making. You also talk too much when often it would serve you better to listen and wait without revealing your own position,” he said. “On the other hand, people have an easy time liking you, you treat everyone who deserves it with respect, and you try to employ your head. That’s why I think that for you, the right spot to be is where you see the bigger picture work of the Resistance, even though I could use a sniper and technician of your talents out in the field more often.” He switched on his universal device, tapping the round hologram with a finger as he lowered his gaze. “Try not to prove me wrong,” he added.

That put his recent work in perspective. Jaal had noticed how Evfra had tried to clue him in on his thought processes and strategies, but he was a hard man to read, especially when you were used to people being as open about their feelings as pretty much everyone Jaal knew was. Jaal didn’t think he succeeded at hiding the pride in his smile at the revelation.

“I’ll get on a shuttle to the Tarak Veya Resistance station on Voeld tonight. You should come with me, meet the people there,” Evfra said. It was the kind of order Jaal had gotten used to now. Evfra liked to have one or two soldiers that he knew well along on his trips off-planet and Jaal was often chosen.

“If warriors are like weapons, am I your sidearm?” Jaal joked.

“Don’t expand on my metaphor, it was bad enough to begin with,” Evfra asnwered, shaking his head.

Jaal chuckled. After four months at Evfra’s side, he had learned a lot, about leadership, about the Resistance, about himself. He’d also learned that he had a bit of a crush on Evfra still, a subtle but noticeably different feeling than before. He liked his dry humour and his dogged determination, how he never shirked from duty, how he reached out, in his own way, to those who had been hurt and tempered those who were just gagging for a fight; he also liked how Evfra would pour over mission reports or kett code fragments at all hours of the night if need be, even when his eyes were half-shut and he yawned into the crook of his arm. It was an appreciation for a man, not the idea of a leader standing tall and untouchable.

Jaal was reasonable enough to ignore it – knowing that there was no point in pursuing it helped –, except for when Evfra looked at him like he did now, almost smiling.


	2. Chapter 2

“That’s done. The data is in the system,” Umar said with a decisively forceful nod of his head. “I’m going home now. If you have anything else, I think Thal and Iwena are at the consoles tonight.”

“Just the regular night shift?” Jaal asked, leaning back against the table as he watched Umar swipe all his knickknacks into a bag with a careless movement of his hand over his desk, datapads and food cans and an empty water bottle clattering together.

“Yeah, there’s nothing special going on, at least not at HQ. Evfra’s around, though. I think he’s waiting for a call back from one of our strike teams.”

“He’s still here?”

They had returned from Voeld hours before sunrise and Jaal doubted he would be on his feet anymore if he hadn’t trudged to his place to take a nap around noon. Since Evfra had made some grumbling comments about meetings with various mayors from around Aya today, Jaal didn’t think he could have had a chance to rest yet. For being fourteen years older than Jaal, his stamina seemed to exceed Jaal’s – or perhaps it was just steely resolve that kept him standing.

“Well, when is he not?” Umar asked with a shrug and picked up his bag. “See you tomorrow, Jaal. Stay strong and clear.”

“Stay strong and clear,” Jaal repeated, with a nod.

After having delivered the batch of kett ship shielding code data handed to him by a Resistance member at the port, Jaal had no more duties left here, either, but he found himself curious as to where Evfra was because he had not seen him in his office. Aside from that, Jaal did like to wander the empty Resistance HQ at times. Only in the dead of night, for four or five hours, were there so few people around – a couple technicians manning communication channels, a few guards. The halls were vast and deserted, quiet around the sound of his feet on the ground. Sometimes he wondered if he was ever going to see a day when the Resistance HQ could look like this on a sunny afternoon, a holiday maybe. He’d never known a world without war, but he still liked to imagine it sometimes. People had always said he was a dreamer.

Walking the empty hallways, Jaal passed by the large window in front of the simulation training grounds when he heard a shot go off, muffled in the distance. Peering into the dark room, he saw no holographic kett waiting to be picked off in the small mock-up of a cluttered battleground. He entered through the side door, passing through the replica environment, and headed for another door to the broad hall in the back of the building, which was a more traditional shooting range with long lanes. The targets here accumulated in their system a percentage of shot accuracy for each individual soldier, so quite a few Resistance members used this as them inofficial competition; Jaal was proud to say he was usually in the top three.

Evfra stood at the end of the room with a standard-issue Isharay sniper rifle in his hands. Jaal had never seen him in here before, which made sense. Evfra’s presence would have no doubt distracted everyone else and he was much too busy for this sort of thing most days. 

He watched him silently from the doorway. So far, Jaal hadn’t accompanied Evfra on a mission where they had seen combat. Stories of his early successes during raids and ambushes were abundant, but there were now many good soldiers in the Resistance, but only one Evfra. It was just logic not to put him at risk too much. The Resistance had been built by him and thus necessarily around him and losing him would no doubt have been a disaster both for morale and actual military organisation. Briefly, Jaal wondered if Evfra trying out people the way he did him, introducing him to the structures and behind-the-scenes of the Resistance, was also Evfra’s way of preparing for the case of his own death.

While he considered this, Jaal had time to notice that Evfra was not going to join him in the top ranks of any accuracy competition anytime soon. He landed most bodyshots, though many not centre mass, and Jaal only saw a few marks on the cutout skull. There was an impatience in Evfra’s movements that did nothing to improve his aim and his stance was off-balance, leaving him at the mercy of the slight but noticeable kickback of the Isharay.

Jaal cleared his throat in hopes of gently alerting Evfra to his presence. Even if he wasn’t doing too well with the target cutout, Jaal was big enough and close enough that he might end up with a bullet in his gut if he scared him. The way Evfra winced briefly at the sound told Jaal he’d made a wise decision.

“What are you still doing here?” Evfra asked, lowering his rifle.

“I was handing in some data from Havarl. The lieutenant didn’t want to risk transmitting it.”

“The consoles are in the front,” Evfra reminded him, as if Jaal would have forgotten, turning away once more to reload his gun.

“Can I ask what call you’re waiting for? Or is it confidential?”

“A strike team on Voeld is trying to secure one of our main southern supply lines by rooting out a kett foothold,” Evfra said. He hesitated briefly, but looked at Jaal, the ridge of his brows pulled down in a frown. “If they don’t make it, I don’t know who else to send who could do it better. I will probably have to give up that whole area to the kett and evacuate two towns.”

That sounded worse than he’d hoped, but sadly, Jaal had long gotten used to briefings like this. For a moment he wanted to turn and leave Evfra, but then decided he’d been around him long enough to speak up about something just a little more private.

“Haven’t you had a long day? Thal and Iwena could call you at home.”

“I wouldn’t sleep,” Evfra said, simply. “I may as well do something with my time.”

It was hard to argue with that.

“Of course,” Jaal said, watching Evfra fire another bullet into the cutout’s knee, and then one into the wall behind it, “but since I’m also here, maybe I could help you with this?”

Again, Evfra looked back at him. “You have problems with my technique?”

“A few,” Jaal answered, honestly.

Evfra glanced at the target.

“I was never a great sniper,” he admitted. “It doesn’t really matter. When I go into the field these days, I take an assault rifle, I do better with those. Still, if I ever happen to have nothing else in a fight, I shouldn’t be caught out.”

“That’s very true,” Jaal said, stepping up to him. “Who taught you to shoot?”

“Are you looking to assign blame for my incompetence? I take full responsibility,” Evfra said dryly.

Jaal had to chuckle. “No, I’m just curious.”

He didn’t think Evfra would let that pass as a reason, but Evfra simply turned his attention back to the cutout.

“My husband and his mothers,” Evfra answered, taking position again, “as well as they could. They were farmers. We could make roots and seeds grow on Voeld, which is a talent, but it’s not as helpful in a battle and it seems fighting is he most important skill any angara has these days.”

There was an undercurrent of dissatisfaction that Jaal understood all too well. It often seemed like the breadth of talents valuable to their society was whittling down every day. Soon, they’d all be soldiers; and maybe after that, they’d all be dead, and their culture would leave nothing behind for anyone to find but rust-stained weapons and broken shells of fighter ships.

He shook the thought off, considering instead the image of Evfra digging in the frozen earth of Voeld to find thick kareb roots and juicy harin bulbs. It was difficult to imagine him as anything but the leader of the Resistance and Jaal would bet it was on purpose because that was how Evfra wanted to be seen. Yet, there was a whole different life he’d lived, one the kett had taken from him along with his family.

“I had a lot of fighters in my family,” he said, instead of reminding Evfra of that sad truth he must be well aware of. “And of course, sniping is my speciality. I think I can show you a few things.”

There was a moment of pause as he wondered how to do this, but finally, he brushed off his timidity and stepped behind Evfra, taking hold of his wrist with one hand and of the barrel of the gun with the other, as he would have done with any other angara. Evfra twitched once as he touched him, but didn’t push him away.

“Your fingers should be here,” Jaal said, urging the broad, webbed digits a little further down and then pressing on then to make Evfra curl them around the barrel. “Hold tight. If you have nowhere to lean on, this is where you keep the rifle stable.”

Evfra nodded his head once, his knuckles white as he gripped the gun. Jaal tapped his side.

“You should turn your hips a bit more this way – yes, towards my hand –, and lean on your back foot for support. Angle your foot towards the door.”

“I doubt kett will leave me enough time to readjust until I’m really sure my toes are pointing the right way.”

“Try to get it right first, then think about how you will do it in a real fight. Speed comes with practice.”

This was Jaal’s area of expertise. Evfra may have been his leader, but Jaal would not back down when he knew he was right.

“I’m not looking to become a master sniper, I want to be passable,” Evfra argued, but he did what Jaal asked of him anyway before he put his finger on the trigger.

His first shot found the target’s chest, the second one hit the stomach, but the third barely grazed the shoulder.

“You’re leaning forward again,” Jaal said, putting his hand on Evfra’s hip to push it back and correct his stance. It was a thoughtless reaction; he’d seen the mistake, he wanted to help. Only when he already had his fingers on him did he realise he may have crossed a line.

Evfra looked at him over his shoulder with an unreadable expression on his face. Just as Jaal opened his mouth, he heard a small beep.

Quickly, Evfra took his hand off the trigger and lifted the hologram interface of the universal device up to his face. “Yes?”

“Transmission from Voeld,” Iwena said, through the comm channel.

Momentarily, Jaal forgot his own blunder, his heart clenching in his chest. He could see in the sombre glance that Evfra sent him his mind had instantly refocused, too.

“Patch them through,” Evfra answered. “I suppose at least someone’s left alive to contact us,” he added, to Jaal, as they waited.

After a few seconds of nothing, a static crackle broke through the silence.

“Lieutenant Laweh here,” a woman’s voice said, slightly distorted. Jaal didn’t know if he was hearing interference or a blizzard or both. 

“Lieutenant, you’re still with us,” Evfra answered.

“Yeah, in one piece. Mission took longer than expected,” Laweh gave back at the other end. “We wiped the nest clean. No casualties, but I had four wounded I had to get back to Paher first.”

Something like satisfaction glowed in Evfra’s eyes. Standing so close to him, Jaal could feel his shoulders sink with relief.

“Getting your people out is priority. You did good work, Lieutenant. Give me a full debriefing after you’ve reported back to Voeld main base.”

“Yes, sir,” Laweh said.

The connection cut and Jaal couldn’t stop himself from laughing with elation. There was a shadow of a smile on Evfra’s lips, too.

“They did it!” Jaal exclaimed.

Evfra nodded his head.

“Thankfully. It would have hurt us to lose her and her team, not to speak of the towns.”

He grabbed on to the end of the rifle again.

“You got your transmission. Do you want to stop?” Jaal asked.

“I don’t have the excuse of being distracted now, so we may as well see if you can make me shoot someone between the eyes once, since you’re already here,” Evfra said.

His tone was still flat, but there was something like amusement in there, rare and short-lived, which Jaal only ever witnessed in such moments of triumph. It lightened the shadows on Evfra’s face and made his blue eyes brighter. It was a hard change to miss for Jaal, especially when they stood so close, because he found it mesmerizingly attractive.

“Right. Turn your upper body more towards the door, too, like...”

Jaal tried to figure out how to explain the exact angle, but Evfra interrupted his thoughts.

“Just put your hand there,” Evfra said, with more leniency than impatience. “You did before.”

Surprised, Jaal obliged, pulling Evfra into position again and then leaning over to check how his fingers sat. However, before he could get a good look, the skin of their head folds brushed up against each other, and there was a sudden audible _snap_ , a discharge of bioelectricity. It raced across his skin like gentle fingers, leaving a pleasant shiver in its wake.

It didn’t mean much, Jaal knew. The anticipation bleeding out of Evfra could have caused it on his part. Jaal himself – he was well aware why he’d been both full of nervous energy yet hadn’t taken care to control it, distracted as he’d been, feeling the arch of Evfra’s hip and standing chest to back with him.

He wondered if Evfra knew, but all he gained was another brief look, no protest, not a word at all.

Evfra took aim. One bullet hit the neck, one missed.

Made daring by Evfra’s acceptance of their proximity, Jaal slid his hand forward, up, over his ribcage. It underlined the point he wanted to make, but he didn’t need to do it. He wanted to see if Evfra would finally wind away from him; he didn’t.

“Exhale and then stop breathing until you shoot. Take your time.”

Evfra followed his order. Jaal could feel every little movement under his hand, Evfra’s body pushing against his palm as he breathed out, then growing still.

The next bullet went in the head. Evfra lowered the gun and looked at Jaal once more, switching the safety on.

“Do you want to hear more of your strengths and weaknesses? You did ask me before,” Evfra reminded him, his tone low and almost mocking. “You’re not a bad teacher, but you don’t have any subtlety.”

Jaal had a feeling the second comment did not pertain to his teaching.

“You... didn’t seem to mind my lack of subtlety,” Jaal ventured, more confused about the fact than anything.

“No, I guess I didn’t.”

The gun was still in Evfra’s hand between them as he kissed Jaal, its muzzle pointed downwards. Jaal had wondered a few times if his lips would be as soft as they looked. They were; they were also cold and tasted of Eshar tea, the strong sort that was almost just pure caffeine. He could feel the line of his scar against his mouth.

Evfra took a step back and Jaal instinctively followed him in the movement with his head, so unwilling to give up the contact.

“This would just be... a release of tension,” Evfra said, after regarding him for a moment and leaning the gun against a corner. “You can leave if you want to. I won’t mention it again. Just because I am your superior here, I won’t...”

Jaal grabbed on to the folds of Evfra’s head and swallowed the rest of his reminder with another kiss, passionate enough that it should wipe away any doubts of his compliance. Against his mouth, Evfra huffed a brief, startled chuckle, a noise Jaal had never heard before, but would have liked to be the cause of again.

Evfra touched him with clear intent, but it was accompanied by a caution that seemed to Jaal not unlike the way he had held the sniper rifle; it wasn’t something he was wholly unfamiliar with, but the ease of habit seemed to be missing as he ran his hands up Jaal’s sides. Jaal hugged him close enough that it didn’t make a difference anymore, became just pure press of bodies, as he continued the searing kiss.

Though he was quick to find the zippers and latches of Jaal’s clothes, Evfra was not overly hasty. His fingers ran along the ridges of the folds on Jaal’s head and though he used no electricity, he may as well have for the small shocks that sent down Jaal’s spine. He kissed slowly, deeply, and Jaal nibbled at his lips and ran his tongue over them until they were warm and tasted of nothing but himself.

Evfra had him up against the wall, but he was leaning into Jaal rather than trapping him, still chest-to-chest as he teased his fingers under Jaal’s clothes and over his back and then tugged at his trousers, freeing his half-hard cock. The white-blue of Evfra’s cheeks had darkened a little and in his eagerness Jaal had pulled Evfra’s rofjinn askew before opening the clasp that revealed a muscular stomach sporting old claw marks, parts of his clothes now hanging untidily off of Evfra. Though nothing about his outfit had truly changed, it seemed entirely new to Jaal; he’d never seen Evfra look _dishevelled_.

“You’re beautiful,” Jaal blurted out.

“Too many scars for that,” Evfra murmured, rubbing the broad, uneven plain of his webbed fingers against the tip of Jaal’s cock, making him draw in air. “But to each their own. I prefer you.”

His tone was no less rough than usual, but it carried a simple honesty with it that Jaal was easily flattered by.

“You’re going to make me blush,” he said, caressing his cheek.

“I hope that’s not the only reaction I will get from you tonight.”

He twisted his wrist and dragged his hand downwards, squeezing him and pulling a low moan from Jaal’s throat. Before he could recover and start fumbling with Evfra’s clothes, Evfra had taken that duty from him, freeing his own cock, and took them both in hand.

His fingers were nimble and strong and he knew just how to manipulate his bioelectricity to tease Jaal’s skin in the right way. His mouth on Jaal’s was still demanding, never allowing him to separate for more than a moment to draw breath. Jaal could feel his blood boiling. It was not much, not really, a quick tryst in the corner of a cold, empty room, but Evfra had been part of his fantasies for years and here he was solid in Jaal’s arms, hard against him because he wanted him, stifling noises against his mouth. 

Jaal pulled out of the kiss, pressing his mouth against Evfra’s jaw line and the folds at his neck instead. He kissed a line to the soft skin of his throat and it moved as Evfra exhaled, swallowing down another groan.

“I wish we could be louder,” Jaal murmured. He didn’t wish to alert a straggler guard to them, either, but he wanted to hear Evfra, wanted to listen to his own name shaken apart by quick breaths, spoken in his dark voice.

Evfra made an undefined noise, running his free hand down to the back of Jaal’s neck. Gently the pads of his fingers slid down over the hard ridges of his head, tensing and digging in when Jaal sucked at the skin of his throat. It was this small gesture combined with Evfra’s hand still on his cock that tipped Jaal over the edge, the orgasm gripping him with a sudden force that had him leaning too hard into Evfra. Evfra caught him, supporting his weight.

After a few gasps for air, Jaal managed to straighten up, kissing Evfra’s cheek, his brow, the scar on his head, whatever part of him was closest at the moment. Taking a small step back until his back hit the wall, he urged Evfra’s hand away from his cock, intent on finishing this himself. His other hand kept Evfra’s head tilted towards him for another kiss. When Evfra’s breath started hitching, though, he put some space between their faces, watching how his blue eyes first widened and then closed, the way his pressed his lips into a thin line to keep quiet; there was tender fuzz of stray electricity emitting from his body that Jaal enjoyed, too.

For a moment longer, they still embraced each other. When Evfra removed himself, he looked around briefly, then stepped to one of the metal tubs in which old training clothes and armour was stuck for washing and fished out a shirt to clean them methodically before he started readjusting his clothes.

His face, so beautifully alluring when touched by lust, had returned to his usual stern expression. The post-orgasm euphoria that had had Jaal smiling broadly was quickly drained.

“Is everything alright?” he asked, while making sure that his clothes looked presentable, too.

“Yes – yes,” Evfra said, distractedly, before turning his attention to Jaal. “You?”

“Of course. It felt amazing.”

Evfra inclined his head in what Jaal hoped was agreement.

“I should take your advice and try to get home before dawn,” he said, balling the dirty shirt up in his hands. “Stay strong and clear, Jaal,” he added, before he walked out of the door.

When Evfra had left, Jaal picked up the rifle and put it on the stand with the other practice weapons. As much as his heart was still pounding with excitement over this turn of events, he had no idea what had moved Evfra to suddenly pull Jaal’s trousers down in the practice room. So far, after all, Evfra had completely ignored any and all of Jaal’s interest, even if much of it had not been very subtle before, either. Had it just been a bout of ecstatic carelessness in the wake of the victorious mission? It was not unusual to indulge such a strong feeling, after all. But why had he shut Jaal out again so quickly?

He’d never met a man who was so difficult to read, who seemed so out of place among a people who were so ready to share their emotions with each other. It should have been frustrating, but it only made Jaal want to pick his thoughts apart like he would a complicated machine, and try to figure out what made Evfra work the way he did.


	3. Chapter 3

Jaal returned to work the next morning, sluggish and with burning eyes after sleeping very little. He’d gotten back to his apartment late to begin with, but had he managed to quiet his mind, he may have slept for four hours, enough to leave him feeling less hazy. Instead, he had stared into the darkness, unable to ban Evfra from his mind, still feeling the tickle of his bioelectricity, the warmth of his skin, his full lips under Jaal’s.

He’d had meaningless sex before and Evfra had clearly framed it like that – just _releasing tension_. Jaal saw nothing wrong with it. Lust was, after all, just another emotion that there was no reason not to indulge providing both were willing. It was the best way to quench a short-lived but hot flame of fiery passion, too.

At least that was the idea. All their meeting had really done to Jaal was incite more curiosity and interest. His mind was occupied wondering what had driven Evfra into his arms last night and what had then made him leave so quickly; and his base instincts wanted him to peel off Evfra’s clothes and kiss the skin underneath, see the body Evfra had described as too scarred to be alluring and prove him wrong.

Evfra was already in his office when Jaal entered, of course, monitoring the consoles lining the side of the room by himself. When Jaal entered, he took his hands of the controls.

“Jaal,” he said, neutrally.

Jaal waited for the door to slide shut behind him.

“Will you be busy or can we talk?” he asked.

“I have a few minutes.”

Jaal nodded his head, now unsure how to begin.

“You seemed unhappy last night, in the end,” he said, finally.

“I’m told I seem unhappy most of the time,” Evfra said flatly. However, he shook his head briefly at his own answer, apparently aware he could not leave it at that. “I think I just surprised myself,” he added, after a moment of silence.

“You surprised me as well. In a very good way,” Jaal clarified.

Evfra made a dissatisfied humming noise.

“I don’t sleep with my soldiers. It was bad judgement on my part.” He paused. “Which is not to imply you didn’t make it worth my while.”

Jaal chuckled quietly.

“You made me worry for a moment.”

Evfra gave him an unimpressed look and once more Jaal didn’t quite know what to take from that. Though Evfra was not smiling, he didn’t look particularly displeased with Jaal, either. Jaal wondered if he was hiding how he felt or genuinely didn’t quite know himself.

“Would you like me not to mention it anymore?” Jaal asked,.

“No, I’ve crossed that line now, that’s not your fault. If you have anything to tell me, you’re well within your rights.”

The professionalism Evfra brought to a situation in which Jaal really blamed him for very little was oddly charming. For his guarded attitude, the one thing Jaal thought he could clearly parse was that Evfra seemed genuinely concerned he had put Jaal in an awkward spot and wanted to keep all escape routes open for him.

Jaal did not care to take any of them. Instead, he stepped closer, until there was only a foot of distance left between them. His mother Feladyr always said that fortune favoured the brave; Jaal couldn’t say if that was true, but he did know that Evfra certainly liked them.

“You needn’t worry, I had no complaints. If that is all that bothers you, I have only one question... would you care to repeat it?”

Evfra cocked his head. He looked more thoughtful than surprised. His eyes darted over Jaal’s face, taking in his smile and what Jaal was well aware had to be a hopeful expression.

“I suppose we could both benefit from releasing tension every once in a while,” he said slowly. “But we should find a bed next time. Join me in my apartment.”

-

Jaal did join him there, several times, most evenings that he spent on Aya from that point on. The first time he stepped foot into Evfra’s home, he noticed it looked nothing like what he had expected. Most people he knew put down roots once they had managed to find a home that was unlikely to turn into a war zone over night – precious few places could claim that, which was why living space on Aya was so precious. They put effort into making it their own and kept memorabilia if they could, especially the ones who had moved away from their homeworlds and of course those who had lost people, which was almost everybody. Jaal had expected some reminder of Voeld like a native plant or an image of snow-covered hills; failing that, at least a picture of Evfra’s children, two young daughters that Jaal knew from talk around the Resistance the kett had stolen along with the rest of Evfra’s family. But if there was a place where Evfra kept such things, it was not as easy to access as simply opening the door to his living room.

There was little that had no use in the apartment. The front room was occupied by a computer terminal and a table with a few chairs. The bedroom held a bed with white sheets and two storage boxes. There were no artworks on the walls and no odds-and-ends on the furniture, which in itself was both strictly functional and slightly mismatched in a way that suggested Evfra had simply picked out the first available pieces.

“I only come here to sleep,” Evfra had told him, when Jaal had mentioned how barren the place looked. “Is your place much different?”

“It’s not very comfortable,” Jaal had admitted, thinking about the small one-room apartment in the lower districts of the Aya capital he’d been granted upon his work with the Resistance. “Mine is a temporary residence, though. My home is on Havarl.”

“I don’t care much about that kind of thing anymore,” Evfra had told him and Jaal hadn’t thought probing further would have been wise.

All that aside, Jaal did get to see Evfra undressed in the privacy of his apartment and what background Evfra was framed by when he stood naked before him very quickly became unimportant. His body spoke of a time not long ago when he had not yet had a coherent fighting force to command, but had gone in the field himself to lead the troops at the front. Knives, bullets and claws had written in his flesh in raised lines and dark dots and deep trenches. From his right ankle up to the knee, his skin was twisted by a large patch of burn scars.

He was handsome despite it all or maybe because of it. It was a body that looked like it had experienced too much pain and under Jaal’s hands and mouth, it was shivering with pleasure, tensing only in anticipation or willing exertion.

Sex with Evfra was hardly a selfless act, of course. First of all, being invited at all certainly stroked Jaal’s ego because he doubted his bed was a spot Evfra filled too carelessly and clearly, in the bedroom, Jaal made enough good arguments to be kept. Besides that, Evfra was just somewhat addicting. He seemed on a mission to find out how to make Jaal lose his mind more than he ever demanded satisfaction of his own. When he took Jaal, he was both careful and passionate. After they were done, he would make fun of Jaal’s habit of keeping him in his arms a moment longer than necessary, but he indulged his love of caresses, absent-mindedly petting Jaal’s chest and allowing long, lazy kisses before they parted.

If anything was lost in their relationship as lieutenant and general, it was only that Jaal was less likely to be repelled by Evfra’s attitude anymore. He had already gotten used to his bluntness long ago, but it was more difficult to feel trepidation before a man who had sighed one’s name into the back of his own hand and sat next to one at the table reading dossiers while having a late dinner.

-

They had never spent the whole night together, but Evfra had given him the key code to his apartment when he went off-planet to a Resistance meeting on Voeld on his own. Jaal had once complained about the long and winding way from the HQ to the lower districts of the capital at the bottom of the hill which got especially troublesome during Aya’s rainy season, when the roads turned into slippery mud streams.

“Just don’t make it too obvious where you’re going in the evenings,” Evfra had told him, while punching the numbers into Jaal’s universal device, “and leave my storage boxes alone. You know which cupboards the food and water are in.”

Jaal got quite comfortable in his apartment for those three days. Evfra’s bed was broad and soft and the walk to the HQ was a short one he undertook in the early mornings so people wouldn’t notice he had taken over Evfra’s place. Without distractions, he did see a few traces of individuality in the apartment after all that had escaped him when he arrived in the twilight hours, already kissing Evfra on the way to the bedroom. Evfra had more food stored than most people he knew, especially on Aya, where at least the basics rarely ran out. All of it was canned paste even though in his position he probably could have easily gotten fresh fruit or something else fancy. Jaal wondered if keeping this amount was a hold-over from his time on Voeld, where he may have been away from major supply lines and the food his family produced would have been largely ground into paste for efficiency’s sake. Evfra also kept a few datapads next to the bed, but they were all marked as Resistance property, so it didn’t seem like he read for fun. Probably because he was never home during the day, the blinds creaked and resisted when Jaal tried to pull them up once, already frozen in their position.

Evfra met up with Jaal at the HQ when he returned, and before he left, he asked Jaal to come with him because he had ‘something to discuss’, a hint for which Jaal gladly dropped the busywork he’d been occupied with. When they opened the door to Evfra’s apartment, however, Jaal felt a twinge of discomfort. There was still a dismantled Thokin in an empty corner of the living room. Though Evfra had left him his apartment, he hadn’t given him permission to make a mess of it. This morning, he had been too drunk on sleep to remember his project.

“I forgot to clean that up,” Jaal said quickly as Evfra dropped his small travel bag next to the table.

For a moment, Evfra frowned at the gun parts. Then he made an indistinct humming noise and shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t use the space for anything.”

“It doesn’t bother you?” Jaal asked, surprised. He’d expected to get in more trouble. The boundaries of their relationship had been narrow from the start, excluding even overnight stays. Jaal occupying parts of Evfra’s space with anything but himself had not seemed included in the deal.

“I like seeing kett weapons in pieces,” Evfra said dryly. “But if you get any machine oil on my floor, you can spend the night scrubbing.”

The words made Jaal smile, not just for the joke.

“That’s fair,” he conceded. “If you don’t mind my small workshop here, can I ask about something else?”

“No, you can’t take apart the appliances I need,” Evfra answered pre-emptively, raising the ridges of his brows. “I know it’s your hobby, but I want the stove to work.”

Jaal huffed a brief laugh. “I was talking about that old uni-device you keep in your bedroom.”

Being one of the few things that had no obvious use, it had caught Jaal’s attention. He had seen it probably wasn’t functional by the missing covers over some of the circuitry.

“Oh, that?” Evfra asked. “It’s fried. It’s fifteen years old and even then it was cobbled together. I liked the interface, but there is no data on it I don’t have. Every once in a while I think I’ll bother to get it fixed, but I think I’d just be told to throw it away. I don’t really know why I keep it.”

“I could give repairing it a try... if you don’t mind.”

Fifteen years and custom-made – Jaal would guess that there were more memories attached to the uni-device than Evfra admitted. Perhaps he didn’t want anyone messing with it after all.

“Be my guest. It’s a waste of time, though,” Evfra claimed, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Good,” Jaal just said, ignoring the tone.

“Are you planning to be busy here or can I actually expect you in the bed tonight?” Evfra asked, as he followed Jaal with his gaze. He had gone to pick up broken bit of tech from the storage box to add it to the small stack of electronic parts that had overtaken a low cupboard in the front room.

“Yes. Well, unless you’d prefer another place to the bed.”

With a rumbling chuckle, Jaal grabbed Evfra by the hips and pulled him close to kiss his mouth. It was a quick, graceless kiss. Mostly, he’d used it to stop himself from saying he’d missed Evfra.


	4. Chapter 4

“Any progress?”

Evfra wiped this face with the towel as he looked over Jaal’s shoulder. Jaal had been itching to get his hands on Evfra’s uni-device again. It was an interesting little puzzle that he’d been working on for a week now, and since he’d dropped by Evfra’s apartment most evenings, he had already started the basis for a refit in short moments spent alone.

“A little. It’s an interesting set-up,” he said, looking up from where he sat on the edge of the bed. “I’ve never seen a uni-devise with this kind of component combination.”

“The woman who built it was used to improvising. She kept our equipment running through the worst supply shortages,” Evfra said with a nod.

“I believe that. It looks like the work of someone with a lot of experience in making unconventional combinations function,” Jaal said, teasing at a cable connection with his tool. “The main memory chip is not damaged, so if I get it going, I may be able to restore the holographic interface you liked.”

“You are quite useful to have around after all,” Evfra muttered. He turned away as his actual uni-device, which he’d placed on the storage chest by the side of the bed, demanded his attention with a curt noise.

As much as Jaal admired the engineering work of this to him nameless woman, he had to admit his attention was seriously compromised when Evfra slung the wet towel over the open door to the bathroom and got on all fours without a shred of cloth on him to stretch across the bed and grab the uni-device.

“Er,” Jaal reluctantly tore his gaze from the round curve of his backside and the strong lines of muscle running down his thighs, “anything important?”

“No, just a regular update from HQ before the night shift takes over,” Evfra said, scrolling down a bullet point list.

Jaal watched him for a moment more, then got up to set the universal device and his tool down on a storage box. When he returned, he put his flat hand on Evfra’s back.

“Then you have time for me,” he said, smiling.

“I thought you were content with your toy,” Evfra answered laconically, not looking up.

“You have a way of commanding attention.”

Leaning over, Jaal kissed the broad, elegant line that extended from the folds at the back of Evfra’s head, running the length of his spine until it narrowed down to a small point just above his backside. He knew Evfra hadn’t purposefully displayed himself, but it was difficult to control his libido when granted this sight, knowing he was allowed Evfra’s body. What warm-blooded angara could have?

He dipped his tongue between Evfra’s cheeks and felt him wince.

“What are you doing?” Evfra asked.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Jaal couldn’t help the disappointment that had snuck in his voice. This was the first time he had attempted this.

“No, it’s... fine, if you want to.”

Now that he looked up at him, he saw Evfra seemed more surprised than indignant as he glanced over his shoulder. The smile returned to Jaal’s face, a little more mischievous than before. Had he not expected this out of Jaal because so far, he’d let Evfra take the lead? In truth, he had only tested the waters to see what Evfra was comfortable with and everything he did with Evfra was good, so there had been no need to rush. He’d never wanted it to stay one-sided, though.

“Of course,” he said, before gently spreading Evfra’s cheeks with his hands and kissing between them. He took his time as he enjoyed tasting the soft skin, still smelling soap on Evfra from his shower just minutes ago. He could feel Evfra shifting slightly, parting his legs for Jaal to accommodate himself, and he reached around Evfra with one hand to touch his manhood while he teased the nerves around his entrance, kissing the ring of muscle. 

It was a few moments before he licked into him the first time while also squeezing his cock once, delighted at the soft noise Evfra made. He didn’t probe too deep, instead concentrated on the movement of his fingers and teased with the tip of his tongue and his lips.

It took remarkably little time to work Evfra up like that – maybe he should have tried it sooner. He was breathing hard and seemed to find it difficult to keep himself from moving his hips to thrust against Jaal’s hand, twitching and twisting underneath him with the need to keep still. Every deeper movement of Jaal’s tongue got him a strangled sound. When he came up, he could see Evfra’s fingers had dug furrows into the folds of the sheets.

Jaal ran his hand down Evfra’s thighs and smiled to himself. He had always liked this immensely. When he himself was too aroused, it was easy to get caught up in the maelstrom and that passion was breathtaking, but it didn’t allow him to pay attention to his partner so closely. When he focused on them alone, however, he could slowly ride the wave of his partner’s lust as he made sure to drive their enjoyment to a peak.

Once more he lowered his head to thrust his tongue into him, now that Evfra was open for Jaal, a quick, strong movement mimicking what else he had planned for him tonight. Evfra huffed out a loud breath.

As he lifted his head, Jaal focused his electricity in one hand, teasing Evfra’s flank with the crackle of static before releasing the energy and smoothing his fingers down the inside of his thigh. He could feel his own cock heavy between his legs, the sight too much to resist now.

“Can I... ?”

“Yes,” Evfra mumbled, raising his head from the pillow. He was completely blue in the face, breathless, and looking a little puzzled still, like he wasn’t sure how he had gotten to this point. Jaal couldn’t help but chuckle, which earned him no worse than a glower, thankfully.

He grabbed the lube they had already used a few times from under the bed and pushed his forefinger into Evfra, meeting no resistance until he let his thumb join as well. Even then, Evfra relaxed soon, with Jaal kissing his shoulders and the ridges of his head, and as soon as he felt it, Jaal didn’t tarry any longer.

Despite his own need, Jaal forced himself not to push his cock too roughly into Evfra’s perfect heat and tightness. He wanted to allow Evfra to get used to him – but he found himself almost thrown off-balance with a sudden shock of pleasure when Evfra squared his knees and pushed himself back against him.

“Are you going to make me wait all night?” he asked coarsely.

Breathless, Jaal laughed as he grabbed on to his hips once more.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

It was heaven taking Evfra. The movements of them in unison were like the irresistible, massive force of the waves drawing back and forth at a shore. Jaal covered Evfra’s hands with his own, holding on as he thrusted as deep into him as he could, lips pressed against his shoulder, chest to back with him. He couldn’t get enough of the way his breath caught and those low, deep moans in the back of his throat.

When Evfra came, he faltered only briefly in his movement before he leaned back into Jaal, pressing his body against him, urging him on to push into him until he was spent, too. With Evfra tightening his muscles around him, it did not take Jaal long.

Afterwards, they laid next to each other catching their breath. Jaal reached blindly for the bottle of water Evfra always kept next to his bed, but it was near empty. With a kiss on Evfra’s biceps, he got up to get another one. On his way, he also passed the bathroom to wash his face; he wanted to kiss Evfra on the mouth again.

By the time he returned, Evfra had sat up in bed. He still seemed a bit frazzled. This was longer than it usually took him to recover his self-control. Jaal took a sip of water before offering the bottle to Evfra, who grasped it with a nod.

“You look shaken,” Jaal said, elated.

“Basking in your achievements, yes?” Evfra asked, after he had had a gulp of water.

“Hm,” Jaal made as he sat down by his side, “a man does sometimes like to see he did good.”

“I don’t think I’ve questioned your talent in this field yet.”

Evfra pushed the cap back down on the see-through bottle and placed it down by the side of the bed, meanwhile allowing Jaal to nuzzle against the spot where the folds of his neck met his shoulder. They sat in silence for a while, Jaal comfortably attached to Evfra’s side.

“No one’s ever done that with me before,” Evfra said. “What you did at first.”

“No?” Jaal asked, lifting his head with a smile. “I wondered why you looked so bewildered.”

“I didn’t really understand what you were up to at first. I _was_ distracted by my uni-device,” Evfra said, apparently in his own defence.

“But you liked it.”

“It’s quite... intense.” Jaal couldn’t tell from his tone whether Evfra thought that was a good thing. “But I’m sure you saw it worked on me.”

“Strange that no one ever tried before. It’s not very uncommon,” Jaal said.

Evfra shook his head.

“Not really. My husband didn’t enjoy oral, giving or receiving. You’ll have noticed I am not great at giving head, either.”

That was indeed true, though Jaal had thought that Evfra had improved in leaps and bounds, to a point where he’d guessed it was just something he hadn’t done in a while, or, without flattering himself, on a man his size. 

From Jaal’s confused look, Evfra seemed to take criticism of what he’d said.

“I assume most people have their idiosyncrasies as lovers,” Evfra noted with a shrug. “This was his.”

“Of course. But what about your other partners?”

“I met my husband when I was sixteen. After him, there was no one until you came.”

This stunned Jaal into silence. He’d only had two lovers all his life? He’d expected Evfra to be picky, but not to that extent. Yet, the part of him that had for years mourned a teenaged love that had never quite gotten off the ground sympathised with Evfra’s ten year wait after an actual marriage and forced separation. Besides, it was not like he was inexperienced; and why would he stray from a man he loved while he was there?

“I didn’t know you were so...”

“Sentimental?” Evfra suggested.

“Romantic,” Jaal corrected.

“Good. The only reason it is your business who I bedded is because you happen to have slept with me. I expect that information to stay with us. I don’t really want people to think about that part of me at all.”

Jaal understood the glimpse beyond the shields he had been granted very well.

“That’s a tall order. I always found it difficult not to think of you in bed,” he said, trying to agree and diffuse Evfra’s tension at once.

The comment actually got a hint of a smile out of Evfra. He ran his hand up Jaal’s arm.

“Did you always know I was interested in you?” Jaal asked, curiously, after a moment of silence. The question surfaced in his mind as he contemplated why Evfra would have picked him, of all people, and after such a long time alone.

“As I’ve pointed out, you’re not exactly a subtle man. I just didn’t think your interest made me unique.”

“What do you mean?”

“You never hide when you’re attracted to people, do you?” Evfra asked with another shrug. “I’ve overheard you compliment plenty of men and women. I’m sure some have fallen to your charms and you welcome them.”

Jaal sat up a little straighter as he thought through the implications of that, lifting his chin from Evfra’s shoulder.

“Do you mean to say I wouldn’t be faithful to my partner?”

“No. I don’t doubt you smother a person you are in love it, and only them,” he said flatly. “But there’s no reason to be faithful to me, so I don’t expect it. Still, I was just one of many you talked about, so why would I think you’d be especially flattered by my attention if you could get it from others who give it more freely? That’s why I didn’t think about your interest much before that evening.”

Jaal had never thought about it like that. He was simply honest – like many angara. It made his heart constrict to hear that some of his lovers may have thought of themselves as random and replaceable; that Evfra apparently did. They weren’t in a relationship, but that didn’t mean he didn’t like him or that he hadn’t seen the many unique beauties and qualities of even his short liaisons that made the experience with them unlike any other.

“You’re not arbitrary,” he said, somewhat crestfallen.

Evfra cocked his head once more, as he liked to do when he was contemplating something.

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“No... I understand.”

Jaal could see that even if you were just looking for companionship and sex, anyone would like to hear that they were more than just an accidental pick in a sea of many, even if it was not wholly truthful. After all, Jaal himself liked to think of himself as special because he had been Evfra’s choice – and now he knew just how exclusive his position had actually been.

While he still sat there in thought, Evfra leaned forward and kissed him. He’d never kissed him like that. It was just a firm touch of their lips, but they were not in the afterglow or initiating the next round. It was not a kiss for the sake of sex; it was just to pull Jaal back to him into the present, or maybe an apology.

“Are you going home tonight?” Evfra asked, unceremoniously changing the topic. “The rain is getting worse.”

Only now did Jaal pay attention to the splattering noise outside. You got used to it on Aya this time of the year, but it did sound like torrents against the windows.

“Not if I don’t have to,” he said. He’d never stayed the night before.

“It’s already dark out. If you leave now, it’s not going to be less suspicious than if you leave in the morning,” Evfra noted as he laid back down.

Jaal nodded his head. He watched Evfra reach for the light switch, then the room fell into darkness. The bed was big enough for the two of them to comfortably lie there without touching, which they did for a while; but when Jaal experimentally placed his hand on Evfra’s, Evfra made no protests. Perhaps he was already asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone had to get on Jaal's case for his flirting habits. The man still hits on every woman on the Tempest even when his romance is initiated (though, granted, it could just be a conversation bug).


	5. Chapter 5

“These are not kett ships. They are like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

With a helpless shrug, Iwena turned away from the console. Evfra was still staring at the readings while the Moshae and Paaran exchanged a brief look.

“And it doesn’t have anything to do with the Remnant machines, either?” the Moshae asked.

“No, I don’t think so. I mean...”

“They are not Remnant,” Evfra interrupted Iwena, turning around to face the two women. “They should be, because are they definitely not kett, either, but they read nothing like Remnant technology.”

“And these unidentified ships going for Kadara emitted from the big static vessel that entered the system a few months ago?” the Moshae asked.

“Yes. The Scourge obstructed our readings, though. We assumed the big ship was of kett origin. They have a habit of finding new frequencies and use scramblers to make themselves difficult to identify,” Evfra explained. “Apparently we were wrong.”

“Why didn’t we send a ship?”

The Moshae looked between Evfra and Paaran like she may have between two of her students.

“We didn’t have one,” Evfra admitted. “Not one that could have flown up to something that big and was likely to come back in one piece. Our last fighter vessel of that strength was destroyed in the battle for Rothier two years ago. We sent a couple of scouts, but neither of them managed to skirt the Scourge well enough to get a good reading.”

“No one but the kett has visited us for all of our known history. We didn’t really think it could be anything else,” the governor added.

“It doesn’t matter. Even if we had known, there is nothing we could have done about it without a real frigate and we don’t have the resources or the manpower to get one into space before next year,” Evfra said with a shake of his head.

“We don’t know if they’re hostile yet. We could have made contact,” Paaran noted.

“And what if they are?” Evfra frowned at her. “If they had grasped how badly damaged our defences are, they may have pounced on us and finished a sizeable chunk of us off before the kett could,” he argued. “In fact, if the angara on Kadara talk too much, they may still do that soon.”

“Yes, I know.” She sighed. “It’s not a risk we can take.”

Jaal was standing by the door in a cluster of high-ranked Resistance personnel, listening to the three of them discuss the data transmitted by a contact Evfra had on Kadara. His mind was barely able to keep up with the information, distracted by the pounding of his heart. _Another_ species of invaders? When they were already struggling to keep the kett at bay, much less gain the upper hand? What had his people done to deserve this fate?

“Do you intend to keep this quiet?” the Moshae asked. Jaal had known her long enough to be able to tell from her tone that she had one answer in mind and would accept nothing else.

“I’d hate to cause a panic, but there’s no way we can get around alerting every major settlement leader,” Paaran said.

“She’s right. We can’t risk making the same mistakes that were made during the first kett invasion. If they send out more vessels, our people need to be warned and agree on a protocol,” Evfra added.

Satisfied, Moshae Sjefa nodded her heard.

“Transmit the data to me as well, Evfra. I will see if me and my students can find any connections to the Remnant. It could still be related to them.”

“Very well,” Evfra said before returning his attention to the console.

Just as Jaal’s first shock wore off and the hastily-called meeting broke apart, another fresh jolt of fear shook him; he realised his sister Orinna’s last knows whereabouts had been on Kadara.

-

“I can’t tell you where your sister’s strike team is or what they’re doing,” Evfra said, restlessly walking between the terminals and his table, which was covered in datapads. “It’s black ops for a reason. It’s not just about her, there are others who can be connected to her.”

“I won’t tell my mothers, I promise,” Jaal said, following him like a shadow.

Evfra stopped so abruptly that Jaal almost knocked into his back. Evfra turned around to him.

“Can you really promise me that if I told you she was in trouble and where, you wouldn’t go looking for her?”

Jaal opened his mouth to protest and found he couldn’t without lying.

Evfra exhaled and closed his eyes for a moment.

“I have recently heard from her.”

“How recently?” Jaal urged.

“ _Very_ recently,” Evfra said. “And geographically, she is unlikely to meet the strangers. I can’t imagine people new to the planet would end up there.”

With his stomach slowly unclenching, Jaal nodded his head. Perhaps Evfra was right that it was better for him not to know the exact coordinates. He still wished he could have flown over and simply collected Orinna, even knowing she was more than capable of defending herself.

“Thank you.”

“It’s more than I should be telling you,” Evfra grumbled, marching back to one of the consoles and collecting a couple of datapads and a small, half-emptied canister of food into a bag. He didn’t seem to be able to work up any real anger at Jaal’s insistent questioning.

“Where are you going?” Jaal asked.

“To Kadara. I don’t intend on making first contact – they’ll have seen the traitors on Kadara by the time we arrive, anyway. But I want to get a handle on the situation in person. We don’t even know what they are now – organics, artificial intelligences...”

“But you told me to prepare to go to Havarl as soon as I can.”

The notice had been at the top of his messages mere hours after Evfra’s conversation with Paaran and the Moshae.

“Yes. Your family is well-respected on Havarl. It will be best if you join the Resistance there and tell them first-hand about our discoveries. People will feel safe with as many of the Ama Daravs there as possible.”

Usually, Jaal would never have felt the need to protest an assignment that allowed him to meet up with his family. Anyone would want to be with them in times of trouble, he’d seldom known an angara who would disagree with that. However, Havarl seemed to be safe for now, whereas Evfra was walking headlong towards the unknown and Kadara was dangerous even without invaders. What if something happened to him? Jaal had no idea how the Resistance would even function without Evfra – despite his efforts to train leaders, it would probably break apart into the splinter groups it had been before –; but in truth, even that was only second in Jaal’s mind. His concern was more personal than that.

“I need to go,” Evfra said. “Stay strong and clear, Jaal.”

“And you.” But before Evfra could head for the door, Jaal caught him by the elbow and bent towards him, their faces close together. “You must promise to be careful.”

“I’m not looking to get myself killed,” Evfra gave back.

Jaal glanced towards the door to check it was still closed and pressed a kiss against Evfra’s mouth. He didn’t think about it; it just felt right that their last kiss for now would be something he could remember clearly in the days and weeks to come, a conscious effort to taste Evfra’s lips.

“Few do. But I know our casualty lists,” he said as he drew back.

“I can take care of myself.”

Evfra lingered there in front of Jaal for a moment longer, close enough that Jaal could feel his warm breath on his skin. His hand brushed Jaal’s wrist, thumb skimming over the back of his hand for just a moment.

“Get on the next transport to Havarl,” Evfra told him, before he stepped away.

-

It was so late it was early morning by the time that Jaal pulled himself out of the comforting circle of his family and went to his room to get to bed. He could still hear people in the house. His sister was playing a music recording next door, which was how she had always said she could best think, and the breathy tones of the wooden Aharash flute whispered in Jaal’s ears. His mothers and some of their husbands were talking among themselves, moving about the community room, the nexus of every angaran home, as they spoke in hasty and hushed tones. His brothers Lathoul and Baranjj were on the other side of the wall behind his head. Their made no effort to keep their voices down and so Jaal heard every word of their plans to fortify the Resistance on Havarl. Lathoul talked about the shotgun he had refitted, how it could tear through kett plating and surely the armour of any other invader.

Jaal reached for his uni-device in the hopes of finding something mindless to occupy himself with that would help his thoughts to slow down, but sat up a little as he saw a notification about a message from Evfra in the corner of the holoscreen.

_Jaal,_

_this is a confidential update. We are approaching their point of descent. The shuttles have organic life-forms on them. They set down by the old badlands port that was claimed by the kett a couple of months ago, but we haven’t noticed any movement in the kett camp itself yet. By tomorrow, we should know whether they plan to make friends with them or attack._

_Tell me about the situation on Havarl._

_Stay strong and clear,  
Evfra_

Jaal wished Evfra had not opted to leave him out of it this time. He could have used someone to watch his back. Of course, the Resistance had many capable soldiers. Jaal was being arrogant to think he had to be there – it really was just that he wanted it to be him.

_Evfra,_

_it’s good to hear you and your crew are safe. I have talked to the local Havarl Resistance members who will spread the news to their families and neighbours. Everyone is advised to be on high alert, as you and Paaran asked. Obviously, people are scared, but that is the worst of it for now. I am, too, and as soon as you have any information you can share, I hope you will._

_Stay strong and clear and be cautious,  
Jaal_

Spending nights alone was nothing new, but right now, he wished he had Evfra here next to him, as he’d been quite a few nights now, even the ones that hadn’t been so rainy. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine Evfra right now. Maybe he was lying awake on a standard-issue shuttle bunk bed, staring at his uni-device – though in reality he doubted Evfra allowed himself any rest at the moment. When Evfra did this at home on Aya, poking around on his holographic interface in the dark of night, Jaal would usually nudge him and tell him to put the glowing thing away. Invariably, Evfra would reply that Jaal was welcome to get up and go sleep in his own apartment; but he always shut the uni-device off quite soon after that.

Jaal’s list of messages did not expand, so maybe Evfra had gone to sleep; or maybe he had arrived on Kadara and learned first-hand that the new intruders and the kett were working together and he couldn’t respond anymore. Jaal tried to banish the thought, but sleep was further out of reach than ever now, so he just kept listening to the recording of the flute – a dark, hollow, melancholic tone like the wind in the giant trees of Havarl – and tried to find his peace that way.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaal mentions in several banter dialogues that it's considered taboo for angara to talk about illness.

“These ones look a bit like us.”

Lathoul leaned towards the grainy picture of the two blue aliens that Evfra’s team had sent to all Resistance bases early this morning and which now flickered on a holoscreen in the middle of the common room table in mother Vaasena’s house.

“Their heads are too small,” Baranjj said. “And they have these tentacles on them. I wonder what they’re for.”

“Maybe nothing,” Eschej answered, pointing at the two folds that ran down the sides of her face. “Ours don’t do anything.”

“This one looks like a big brown challyrion,” Teviint pointed out, with distaste clear in her voice.

Jaal glanced at the creature she was looking at, the subject of another image next to the one with the blue aliens. The creature – the person – did indeed seem to be made out of pieces of hard shell, though it was much taller than a challyrion and its half-opened mouth revealed a row of teeth like needles.

He let his gaze wander once more over the pictures, though he’d been staring at them all day now. To everyone’s surprise, not one, but five species of new aliens had been identified among the intruders and Jaal could only wonder how many of their kinds they had brought if each race planned to settle or conquer here. There were the soft-skinned ones that might possibly be two varieties of the same species, one kind blue with tentacles and the other exemplars coming in a variety shades with fur on their heads. Without weapons in hand, either of them at least seemed less dangerous than the challyrion type and the ones with the huge humps and broad faces who looked like moving boulders. Finally, there were the tall, slim aliens with big black insect eyes. All of them seemed to work together.

The only reassuring news so far had been that all five groups had lifted their weapons against the kett. The photos and first reports had already been distributed widely among Resistance bases so people would know what to be on the look-out for.

“How many more hours do you plan to puzzle over these pictures?” mother Vaasena asked, looking at Jaal and his brothers, sisters and cousins, fifteen of them sitting around the table. She was leaning out of the kitchen door with her arms crossed over her chest. “That’s no help to anyone now. You could come prepare dinner with me instead.”

“Is _that_ really important right now?” Teviint asked, grudgingly lifting her gaze from the pictures.

“It will be by the point you’re all complaining it’s not ready yet. Aliens or not, we need to eat,” Vaasena said, her firm gaze resting on Teviint now. “Come, I need four of you at least.”

“I’ll be right there. I just need to see if there’s news from Evfra, mother,” Jaal said with a mild smile. Vaasena had always known how to keep everyone on the right path through the worst of times. When his father had been taken by the kett, she’d been the one to make sure that Sahuna could keep her household running while they all recovered from the loss.

Jaal walked out onto the terrace, looking over the wall that came up to his chest, high enough to keep out at least the smaller critters. Absent-mindedly, he disattached a creeping plant that was reaching its delicate green arms over the balustrade. If you lived on the outskirts of a daar in Havarl, you had to check the weed every day or risk your house getting completely cocooned in wild plantation in a month’s time.

In front of him was the flower-studded thicket of the jungle that covered much of Havarl. Though sweltry and overgrown, with dangerous animals lurking behind every moss-covered rock and vine-strangled tree trunk, Jaal still loved his home world. He couldn’t imagine giving it up to the kett or anyone. It was the birthplace of angaran civilisation, after all, and, despite all its perils, it never failed to be beautiful.

After watching the sinking sun colour the sky orange and pink and purple behind the treetops for a moment, he finally pulled out his uni-device. The last update about the situation had come in the morning after scant hours of sleep for Jaal. It had included the pictures of the aliens Evfra’s team had discovered after landing the shuttle. He saw that another message had arrived a couple of hours ago, about the time when Jaal had joined up with his family after discussing the new intel with the local Havarl Resistance.

_jaal,_

_our team has left kadara ato the special reconnaisance teams. it seems tee aliena want to stay in the plkace they have freed. kardara anbgar have joinged them, but one of the fur-heads aliens took control and seems toplan on ruling over all a angra contact insde tol dme. we will see wht happens_

Jaal found himself narrowing his eyes at the uncoordinated message, which ended abruptly there, without a signature or the customary well-wishing. He’d never gotten any piece of writing from Evfra that didn’t look at least presentable to a point that it could have been sent in a mass-mail to all Resistance members if need be. This was not Evfra’s way.

He tried to push his confusion away in favour of considering the information, as he was sure Evfra would have wanted him to do. The kett had started out cooperating with them as well, everyone knew that. Even if these aliens did not execute local angara on the spot, that meant nothing; and the fact that they had planted down a ruler on a world that was obviously already populated said nothing good of their intentions.

_Evfra,_

_that’s not good news. The angara on Kadara are traitors, but to have them under alien rule could become dangerous for us and them._

Jaal hesitated. Maybe he should have ended the message there, but he was still curious, even if he hoped Evfra would have alerted him had something serious happened to him.

_You seem in a hurry, is everything alright on your end?_

_Stay strong and clear,  
Jaal_

It wasn’t until Jaal was already in the kitchen helping his mother and siblings mash fruit into paste that his uni-device buzzed against his wrist once more. Licking sweet juice from his fingers, he turned around to block the screen with his body from ever-curious Lathoul and Baranjj, knowing that his and Evfra’s communications were generally confidential – and that perhaps something more personal and tender might be in them than any of his family expected.

_Jaal,_

_I wasn’t in a hurry when I wrote to you, I just had too many drugs in my system. Don’t worry, I wasn’t stupid enough to send this message to anyone else in this form. I just wanted to get back to you quickly, since you seemed worried._

_You are right, the Kadara angara come from all over. Some are even former Resistance members. We have to be extremely cautious. They could leak all kinds of information._

_Stay strong and clear,  
Evfra_

“Is everything okay, Jaal?”

Vaasena must have caught the look on Jaal’s face as he read those lines. Evfra didn’t even drink, much less use drugs, and if he did, Jaal doubted he’d have admitted to it. However, angara would often delicately phrase their wording around the fact that they were sick or in pain in some way and he had a feeling this was Evfra’s version. Obviously one did not publically speak about one’s health problems, but he had slept with Evfra for months now. They were not partners, but Jaal thought being that vague was unnecessary.

“I hope so. I just have to answer this, mother,” he told her.

_Evfra,_

_are you hurt? What happened?_

_Stay strong and clear,  
Jaal_

The answer came a few minutes later. Even the short wait had left him so distracted that he had almost chopped his thumb off cutting sweetroots when Teviint asked him where the jar with rhajer pollen spice was.

_Jaal,_

_we were ambushed by local angara on our way back to the shuttle. I struggled with one of them and she smashed my left elbow between a big stone and the ground. We don’t have a doctor with us, only a field medic, and she’s afraid to set anything on the go, so I have to wait to get back to Olvek._

_I won’t take the pain killers she’s given me again, though. You see what it does to my head._

_Stay strong and clear,  
Evfra_

Because he didn’t want to have to explain what was no doubt sensitive information to his family, Jaal tried to swallow his anger, but he still mutilated the next sweetroot more than he cut it. Those damn traitors on Kadara! Not enough that they lifted no hand to ensure their own survival, they had to prey upon those who were trying their best to help their species outlast the kett, too! Maybe Jaal would have had some sympathy for their frustrations if most of them hadn’t also turned to thieving and scavenging to stay afloat, stealing what little the people they had left behind still had. And now this!

That Evfra was sitting on his return transport without pain medication for a splintered elbow bothered him as well. Jaal left the kitchen under Vaasena’s watchful eyes to write his most important thought down immediately.

_Evfra,_

_you should take the medicine and rest until you’re back on Aya. It doesn’t sound like a light injury._

_Stay strong and clear,  
Jaal_

While his brothers and sister were setting the table, Jaal went to get a canister of purified water from the container outside. They had little company today – only eleven people –, although he expected some of his relatives and neighbours to drop by during the course of the evening and share some leftovers. The door to mother Vaasena’s house had always been open, as those of most angara were.

His despondent mood, which had caught the attention of his mothers Vaasena and Sahuna during dinner as they tried to prod him for a reason, lifted a little when his uni-device blinked once more, ensuring him Evfra hadn’t fallen unconscious yet or worse.

_Jaal,_

_no._

_Evfra_

Against his will, Jaal had to laugh.

Teviint looked up from her bowl.

“I thought you were writing with Evfra?” she asked.

“I am.” Catching her dubious look, he shrugged his shoulders. “He can be funny if he wants to be.”

And even if that didn’t make it easier to think of Evfra’s pain, at least it told him Evfra was still well enough to be himself.

“I’m glad you seem to get along with him,” Sahuna said. “I’m proud of your work in the Resistance, Jaal.”

In Jaal’s eyes, it really felt more like he was stagnating, professionally at least. Though Evfra had never stopped teaching him and he was sent on missions, he also had yet to offer Jaal even a temporary command. He must feel like he wasn’t ready for it yet which smarted because Evfra knew him so well now that Jaal could hardly pretend it was only because Evfra misjudged his character.

“People say Evfra has taken a special interest in you,” Sahuna continued.

Since Jaal was not used to lying to his family, he had to summon all his willpower to keep a straight face. Briefly, he wondered if gossip about them would have been meatier if Evfra had not taken such care to shut himself off from the world the years before. He’d expected someone to notice the fact that he visited Evfra at home sometimes, which no one else seemed to do, but Evfra’s image really did seem to prevent people from adding up two and two.

“He has. I think he sees potential in me. He does like to take me along when he leaves Aya, too. I wish he had taken me to Kadara,” Jaal admitted.

“Well, I’m very happy you aren’t on Kadara right now,” Sahuna answered.

Jaal nodded his head, not because he agreed, but because he understood why she’d be worried. After finishing his last bite, he scrolled through the list of messages again up to the latest.

_Evfra,_

_I would fight about it, but I know you’re as stubborn as an eiroch going after his prey._

_Take care of yourself,  
Jaal_

-

Jaal had hoped that at the very least he would be able to see Evfra in a few day’s time, but a kett attack on Havarl made short work of that hope as he was ordered to help a local strike team to clean up the mess. It was a longer process than he’d thought, weeks of treks into the thick of Havarl’s jungle. They made camp where they could, sleeping on the forest ground, and woke up with vines having twined around their limbs and half an insect colony in every part of their armour. Between short rests, they fought an exhausting battle of attrition. The kett didn’t know the terrain like the angara did, but they were more numerous and had more intel than the local Resistance had predicted.

There were no opportunities for vidcon, but Evfra still wrote him personal updates on Kadara, the kett, and discussions on Aya. No matter how hectic Jaal imagined the situation had to be, it seemed Evfra always found time for that; and no matter how many wounds he had to lick after a day’s or night’s work, Jaal always wrote back. He stayed in contact with his family, too, of course, but he found Evfra’s daily communication was just as important to keep his mood stable.

Evfra even wrote to him when there was nothing new to say. Those were short messages, then, simply wishing Jaal well on his mission, a brief sarcastic comment on a meeting he’d had or something to that effect. Jaal never failed to answer those messages, either. Once, Jaal got a message at what must have been three in the morning local Aya capital time. ‘ _I just saw the uni-device pieces sitting on my storage box. If you can’t fix it, you at least have to reassemble it._ ’

Jaal imagined Evfra perching on the side of his bed in only his underclothes, like he’d seen him do so often, and staring at the parts in the dark. He thought of crawling up behind him on the bed and wrapping his arms around his neck from behind, Evfra lifting his hand to brush his knuckles gently down the folds of Jaal’s head, as Evfra would sometimes to when they laid close by each other. That moment, Jaal felt a sudden, heart-clenching surge of intense longing.

‘ _Don’t lose faith in me yet. Call me back to Aya and I promise I will get it running._ ’ he answered.

Jaal returned to his true mother’s house after three weeks. They had lost one man right on their first push into the jungle, so fast Jaal had barely been able to learn his name, and had to exchange a dozen wounded soldiers for new ones during the course of their mission. However, the latest kett arrivals were now all uprooted from their hideouts and that was something to be proud of, at least.

Together with Farij, the strike team leader, he had spoken to Evfra over voice chat. He had commended them for their work and told them to be vigilant, but added that so far, there didn’t seem to be any news regarding the kett or any other alien intruders on Havarl.

“Jaal, you’ll stay for another week in case there are stragglers and because of some other developments I’ll discuss with you later. However, I want you back on Aya after that,” Evfra told him.

“Acknowledged,” Jaal answered, smiling briefly.

Almost as soon as the meeting was over, he found his uni-device blinking once more.

_Jaal,_

_considering you know Akksul well, I wanted you to hear this before it made its way to Havarl by way of Resistance intel or gossip. Akksul broke with the Resistance. You know he never forgave us that we weren’t able to liberate the slave labour camp he was held in. I was always sure he’s considered me incompetent since then. When I told him I had no intentions of launching an attack on Kadara Port at the moment, he said as much to my face. His people call themselves the ‘Roekaar’. He’d apparently already collected disciples before he confronted me because quite a few have followed his departure. He’s headed for Havarl, since he says the angara are his priority and it is, after all, the angara home world, but I doubt he’s a danger to us for now. Hurting his own is not his plan, it’s the aliens he’s concerned about. However, the Moshae says he’s changed much since he’s suffered at the hands of the kett. I’ve alerted the local township leaders to be on the look-out, but I’m trying to be civil with him at the moment. I think many of his people are just disappointed and scared and some may be brought back to the fold yet._

_I hope your day is going better than mine._

_Stay strong and clear,  
Evfra_

The news were bone-chilling. Jaal had always lived in a world under constant threat, so having enemies on the outside was normal to him. It was the infighting that was most destructive and it had only been five years since Evfra had really shaped the Resistance into a singular force, not nearly long enough to forget the demoralising uncertainty that had existed before. That Akksul would risk returning them to such a state in his arrogance was inconceivable to Jaal.

_Evfra,_

_Akksul was always a grandstanding man who thought too much of himself, and he’s convincing enough to be surrounded by friends and followers who hang on his every word. However, I doubt too many outside his circle share his opinions, and as you said, some of his people are hopefully just frightened for the moment and will return to their senses soon enough. They have to! It’s madness to split us now when we need to stand together the most._

_I have enjoyed my time with my family, but I look forward to my return as well._

_Stay strong and clear,  
Jaal_

The answer to this message was missing still by the time he had sat down for dinner with his family and some neighbours at mother Feladyr’s place, but Jaal could still not tear his thoughts from Evfra now, only participating in conversation when spoken to. He wondered about that moment when Akksul had stepped into Evfra’s office, perhaps even accompanied by his cronies; what it had felt like for Evfra to see a part of the Resistance he had worked so hard to build break away.

Jaal had never much cared for Akksul and his dislike was slowly cooling down to something approaching hate.

When he turned in for the night, his sister Eschej was by his side, unlocking the door to their true mother’s home with her uni-device. She’d had an impish smile on her face all the way back, but they had walked in silence up to now and Jaal had been too much in thought to question it.

“You know, with all the craziness that is happening lately, it’s good to see some things never change,” she said, finally, after the doors had closed behind them.

“What do you mean?” Jaal asked.

“That you are still as thick as ever when it comes to noticing that someone is flirting with you,” Eschej answered, knocking her knuckles against his forehead once. “Didn’t you see Tahal was trying to get your attention all evening?”

“Really?” Jaal asked, honestly baffled. He remembered talking to her, of course, but in truth he’d mostly been thinking about Evfra’s message.

“I’m sure she’ll forgive you if you ask her out tomorrow, you know. Dashing Resistance warriors can get away with being a bit dense.” Eschej chuckled. “Good night, Jaal.”

As he laid in his bed, Jaal’s thoughts strayed briefly to Tahal. She was a pretty, sporty woman who liked to tinker with shuttles, which was something they’d bonded over in their youth growing up here because Jaal was someone who liked to tinker with everything. She was a pilot now and a good one from what he heard.

However, nothing about the idea of being with her excited him at the moment, neither his mind nor the more base part of himself. Even as he took himself lazily in hand, hoping just to fall asleep faster if he exerted himself that way for a moment, his thoughts rubberbanded back to Evfra, as they always did lately when he touched himself. He thought about the night before he had left, before the readings had come from Kadara, when Evfra had pushed him down on the bed and climbed on his lap, his hands keeping Jaal pinned as Evfra took his pleasure from him. Jaal remembered thrusting up into Evfra’s body in wild abandon, Evfra’s strong thighs squeezing around his hips, the way he was smiling faintly down at him, his eyes half-lidded, beautifully spring water-blue. Jaal could have watched him forever.

When Jaal was finished, he allowed his thoughts to linger on the aftermath as well. Evfra had collapsed, his weight heavy on him, and Jaal had taken him in his arms and stroked his back, explored every scar he could find, kissed his shoulder. Evfra had mocked him: “Every once in a while I am reminded you had a pet kaerkyn as a child. You seem to miss it a lot.” In response, Jaal had only laughed and hugged him closer, so tight he must have squeezed the air out of his lungs.

It was a good memory to fall asleep to.


	7. Chapter 7

Though Aya’s evening sky was clear the day Jaal’s transport landed, his mind was clouded. Just a day ago, Evfra had written to tell him that the Moshae had been kidnapped by the kett. All angara, he was sure, took badly to those news. In a time where war had taken over every part of their society, she was one to hold up the twin beacons of knowledge and culture, teaching people by example that the angara were more than just kettle for their conquerors, that there was something about their culture at large that was worth fighting for and that extended beyond the individual.

But aside from that, Jaal had also known her personally and loved her as a teacher. Granted, he hadn’t been a favoured student; she’d seen his place was not with her. However, though she had given up on him in that regard, she’d never spoken to him in a way that made Jaal feel like she believed he was useless – just that he should continue to search for that which was a better fit for him.

As he made his way to the Resistance HQ, he tried to let the well-known atmosphere of Aya wash over him. The market place was still bustling, discussions were ongoing in the town square, the streets were full of people whose lives continued. They didn’t even know yet whether the Moshae was dead, after all, and could still work to save her; and even if they were too late, something he didn’t want to imagine, her teachings would stay with them. It was the first time in his life he ever found himself wishing for Akksul’s presence. Had he still been of sound mind, he could have continued in her place. He was not as wise as her, to be sure, but he had a way of talking to people that always made them quiet down and listen, even against their will. Of course, he had decided to employ his talents to weaken the angara instead, as Jaal could clearly see, even if Akksul might not have thought of it that way.

The HQ would have looked normal to anyone who had never been there before, but Jaal noticed that every console was manned and even Resistance members who didn’t seem to have anything immediate to do stood around in small clusters, tense, quiet, as people who were itching to help yet couldn’t find a point to start at were wont to do. The news about the Moshae must have already spread.

In the middle of it all, in his office, Evfra stood with two technicians at the large computer that covered one wall of his room. He looked up from their discussion when Jaal entered.

“Jaal,” Evfra said with a nod, stepping away from the two. “What took you?”

“The transport had to reroute around an unexpected growth of the Scourge,” Jaal answered.

When Evfra came closer, Jaal found a small surge of unpleasant surprise grip him. He’d never seen Evfra look this plainly unwell. He was holding his left arm oddly stiff, even though that injury should have long been set and healed up by now, and the colour had drained from his face, leaving him white from his chin up to his forehead, making the scars stand out especially stark. There was a feverish haze to his eyes and his movements looked sluggish and imprecise.

“I see.” Distractedly, Evfra looked at one of the monitors overhead. “We’re tracking the ship that took the Moshae now, but we still haven’t been able to pinpoint a final location. The fact that they do seem to have special plans with her worries me, but it bodes better for her survival.”

“If we are lucky, she is just a hostage,” Jaal said slowly.

He didn’t want to think what else the kett could do with the Moshae. If she was questioned, they might torture her. The best option for her would be if they simply threw her in a cage and put the pressure on the rest of the angara instead.

“Yes,” Evfra said, rubbing his brow. “Go check on the front room consoles for me and get me a report from Tehsal. There was an attack on the main Resistance base on Voeld, no doubt trying to use our distracted attentions. We should have held it off, though. I was expecting something like that – the kett can’t trick us that easily.”

“Of course.” However, Jaal hesitated, then instead took a step towards him and cleared his throat before he asked in a quiet voice: “Evfra... one more question, are you feeling alright?”

“Didn’t your mothers teach you any manners? You don’t ask things like that in public,” Evfra muttered under his breath.

“You look sick,” Jaal gave back, more blunt than he wished he would have to be. It wasn’t comfortable to speak about, but if Evfra evaded him otherwise, he left Jaal no choice but to pin him down like this.

“You sound like Olvek. Go bother him if you want to discuss medical questions. I don’t have time to lounge in a bed now.”

“When I’ve gotten the Voeld reports, we should go home. They can call you in if they have information on the Moshae.”

Evfra shook his head and, considering the way he stopped abruptly, winced, and closed his eyes, seemed to regret doing that immediately.

“I can’t _go home_. It’s not going to reassure people if I leave my post at a time like this.”

In the past, Jaal realised, he would have let Evfra have his way. He was still his superior, after all, and a man who had achieved things that Jaal could only dream of. However, he knew him better now, well enough to see that, like all people, Evfra sometimes blinded himself willingly. His determination and confidence could turn against him when he refused to see that he couldn’t carry the world by himself.

“It’s not reassuring to anyone for you to be here when you look like you are about to collapse,” Jaal said, quiet but stern.

Evfra, who had obviously expected the conversation to be over because he’d decided it was, looked up at him with his mouth twisted in anger.

“You’re exaggerating.”

“I’ve been here for a minute and I noticed.”

Evfra stayed silent, apparently fishing for something to say, but Jaal had the better arguments and Evfra was not someone who openly defied logic – even if it didn’t please him.

“Fine,” he hissed. “Now go, we’re wasting time.”

-

“Are you going dark?”

Evfra nudged away the hand Jaal had lifted to his head folds, feeling the skin there that was like cool stone against his fingers. They were walking side-by-side up the stairs of the apartment complex Evfra lived in.

“I’m a Voeld native on Aya, I couldn’t go dark here if I locked myself in a cellar for a month.”

“You feel as cold as Voeld.”

“It’s just an inflammation. The operation wound on my elbow hasn’t healed right. I haven’t had time to let it rest.”

Inflammations, if left unchecked, had a tendency to block the sunlight receptors. So Evfra _was_ going dark, he was just being obstinate about it. Jaal punched in the code to the apartment door, which he knew by heart at this point. In the corner of the front room, the parts of what he liked to call his workshop were sitting untouched; scrap metal and loose electronical parts, dismantled weapons, small tools. Evfra had kept them there for all the weeks he’d been gone, Jaal realised.

“Olvek must have given you something to counteract that, right?” he asked, as the door slid shut behind them.

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t it work?”

“I don’t take it all the time. It makes me drowsy,” Evfra said.

There was a thread of stubbornness in his voice that told Jaal he knew that what he was doing was wrong. Jaal shook his head at such deliberate foolishness.

“You’re going to end up dead and the kett won’t have anything to do with it,” he said.

Evfra frowned at him and sat down at the table, but seemed to allow Jaal’s words to stand like that. He rubbed his forehead again and let his eyes fall shut.

“How are you taking it?” he asked, after a moment of silence. “I know you love the Moshae.”

“As do we all. I’m... shaken, but I know we have a chance to get her back. She’s not lost yet.” Jaal sat down opposite Evfra. “It’s too early to give up hope.”

Evfra made a wordless noise of assent.

“How about you?”

“Would you like to hear what I’m going to tell the main frequency tomorrow or the truth? I can’t promise it’s elating, so you might want to opt out,” Evfra said. He was leaning heavily on his good arm on the table.

“Always the truth,” Jaal answered with conviction.

“One of my men betrayed us to the kett. He wanted them to capture the Moshae.”

Jaal halted, still with shock for a moment. What angara would do such a thing?!

“Are you serious?!”

“Yes, I am.” Evfra opened his eyes to look at Jaal. “It feels like the Resistance is falling apart in my hands. I can’t protect our leaders and I can’t keep my fighters in line and I know how to fight kett, but I don’t know what to expect from these new aliens.”

Jaal swallowed, but said nothing. Evfra hadn’t been wrong to warn him. It was frightening to see him hopeless and scared when he’d always been the one to fight against impossible odds without allowing the options of defeat and surrender. However, if he wanted Evfra to remain honest with him, then Jaal had to show that he could take it.

Evfra looked towards one of the windows and exhaled slowly, a silent sigh.

“I have to remember I still have good people,” he said, more to himself. “It would be unfair to you all if I believed that without Akksul’s band of short-sighted extremists, we have no chance to defend ourselves, or even that losing the Moshae, much as I respect her and want her back, would mean our total ruin.”

Jaal nodded his head, clinging to those words. They would stay strong and clear. It was what the angara had done through so many years of terror and occupation.

“You’re right,” he said, leaning towards him, “and if you don’t go into a coma, it will be even easier.”

Finally, he had wrenched a smile from Evfra.

“If I take my medicine, you won’t get anything out of me tonight,” he said, as he pushed himself up from the chair, dragging his feet on the way to the kitchen. Jaal very much doubted he would have been up for sex even without the drugs.

“Don’t worry about that,” he said. It was not why he’d come here. “Can I still stay?”

“You’re here already, aren’t you? Unless you want to get your bag back to your place tonight.”

“No, I don’t mind. I spend more time here than there, anyway, when I’m on Aya. I could probably even leave it here.”

Evfra seemed to contemplate this for a moment, then shrugged and nodded his head. “You already spread your junk all over my living room,” he muttered, pointing at the workshop before he emptied a disconcerting amount of pills into his empty hand and swallowed them with a gulp of water.

“It’s not junk. I’m still working on that.”

“Are you sure? I think you’ve atomised that Ushior, at the very least,” Evfra noted.

Jaal chuckled and followed Evfra with his gaze as he walked into the bedroom. Evfra tugged his rofjinn off over his head before he pulled down the zippers of his suit. Jaal watched him uncover his upper body, tracing the well-known scars with his eyes, admiring the strong set of his shoulders. There was a bandage around his elbow that no doubt covered new marks and he had lost weight, but he was still a marvel to behold.

“Can I help you?” Evfra asked, catching his gaze as he raised the ridge of his brow.

“I like looking at you,” Jaal answered, simply, with a smile. “You’re... mesmerising.”

Evfra scoffed, but he didn’t shut the door either as he peeled off everything but his underclothes and set his uni-device down on the storage chest next to the bed. It always rested there at night so he could hear it right away if someone needed his attention.

Jaal got up from the table, too. It was not late and he could have worked on his workshop projects, but it had been over a month since he’d been close to Evfra and he yearned for the sensation, his smell, the touch of his scarred skin under his hand.

After undressing himself, Jaal slipped into the bed with him and just then remembered he was lacking an excuse to touch him the way he wanted to. They only embraced during or after sex and then parted for the night, except for a few casual touches. 

And yet, Jaal felt like there was much about their relationship that had changed since his first night here and with all that was going on, he needed to have someone to hold on to. He needed Evfra. Since Evfra laid with his back turned to him, he carefully inched close until his chest pressed against Evfra’s shoulderblades, resting a hand on his hip.

“Jaal, I mean it. I’m going to fall asleep on you,” Evfra murmured.

“I know, I wasn’t going to – I’m just here to warm you,” he said, his cheek leaning against the back of Evfra’s cold head.

Evfra huffed a breath. For a moment, he was very still, then he took Jaal’s hand and pulled it over his side, giving it a firm squeeze before he relaxed against the pillows. Jaal moulded himself against his broad back and placed a few kisses on his shoulder. He was awake for long enough to feel Evfra’s cool body become heavy with sleep in his arms, leaning back into Jaal.


	8. Chapter 8

“This is it?” Evfra asked.

Jaal found himself taking a step closer to the screen, trying to see details in the shaky overhead image of a kett facility that was almost fully enveloped in snow.

“Voeld?” he asked.

“Yes,” the specialist at the console answered, moving thumb and forefinger apart to enlarge the blurry picture. “The transport with the Moshae tried to shake our trackers, but they didn’t land anywhere else and we were eventually able to trace them. If they took her further, it must have been on foot because we have the place under surveillance and no vehicles have left so far.”

“I doubt it. The blizzards on Voeld are unpredictable. They wouldn’t risk being buried with the Moshae,” Evfra said. “Can we get people inside?”

“No, the dynamic shield tech they are using outpaces our processors. We are working on it, but it will take us a while.”

“We might not have that,” Evfra said, thoughtfully, “though I don’t think the kett would be stupid enough to kill the Moshae without even trying to use her as leverage first, even if that wasn’t their original intention. Put aside the other codes you are working on for now and give them to your team. I want you concentrating on this.”

“Yes, sir,” the specialist said, solemnly nodding his head.

Together, Jaal and Evfra stepped away from the console.

“This is good news,” Jaal said. It felt like a clamp around his stomach had been released.

“It’s been a while since we had any,” Evfra answered. “But we still need to find a way inside.”

-

For the rest of the day, Jaal found his heart lighter. Of course the Moshae was not rescued yet and he was still worried about what the kett wanted with her, but at least they weren’t groping completely in the dark anymore. Besides focusing on this ray of hope, he managed to distract himself by teaching young recruits in the shooting gallery. Seeing first-hand that not everyone was following Akksul in his blind rage was reassuring. The Resistance could still stand strong in troubled times like these.

Evfra himself looked a little bit better than he had when Jaal had arrived, too. It helped that Jaal had all but physically dragged him out of the Resistance HQ the last three days when the night staff crew arrived and once Evfra was at home he could usually persuade himself to take his medicine, eat something and get a decent amount of sleep. After all, he was not a stupid man, just a stubborn one.

Though Evfra spent most of his free time dozing, Jaal hadn’t even been to the temporary quarters he’d been assigned yet. It made him feel a bit guilty considering how many people wanted to live on Aya while he just wasted a room. However, he kept his tools at Evfra’s place now and it was bigger than his little visitor’s chamber. Having the living room more or less to himself allowed him to spread out the projects that he worked on while Evfra slept off his inflammation.

In truth, Jaal would have worried if he hadn’t been able to keep an eye on Evfra. The man was nowhere close to dying, but it seemed normal to Jaal to be concerned; and although Evfra didn’t really need help with anything, Jaal liked carrying water to Evfra’s bed, rubbing his ice-cold fingers and collecting kisses for his efforts. 

Even while he was ill, Evfra was still good company. He was frequently startled awake by dreams he never talked about and would then watch Jaal and ask about what he was building and repairing. They would get to talking until the drugs took Evfra out again. Jaal had liked having a room of his own growing up, but living alone had never been for him. Now that he stayed with Evfra it felt like he came to a home when he left the HQ in the evenings, not just to a place where he slept.

With the computations to crack the shields still underway, Jaal was confident he didn’t have to force Evfra to come with him tonight. His rifle shouldered, he strode out of the practice area and into his office just when the sun had set.

He found Evfra in conversation with Lieutenant Fahrl. Jaal knew the man from reputation and had seen him a couple of times during his visits to the Voeld main base. Barely older than himself, he had already headed three successful raids on kett camps and worked himself up to the status of a local hero. It helped the image that Fahlr was also an uncommonly tall angara with a pleasant, muted green colour and a wide, honest smile. At this moment, he was bending unnecessarily close over Evfra’s shoulder, pointing at a schematic displayed on Evfra’s uni-device.

“We plan to enter the kett facility through their own underground access routes. Since they don’t know we’re aware of them yet, that should shake them up a bit.”

Evfra nodded his head.

“It’s a good plan. Don’t expect the kett to play along, though. They may have idle troops enough to guard the entrance.”

“Of course,” Fahrl said. “Adapt on the battlefield, right? I studied reports of your attacks on kett facilities. You broke from your set strategy several times.”

“Do it as necessary. Don’t confuse your team without reason, but don’t be stuck on your master plan, either.”

Evfra straightened up and Fahrl did with him, still standing so close their shoulders touched. To his own surprise, Jaal felt a sudden and violent pang of dislike for the man. He had never spoken a word to him and now he thought he could easily live without that pleasure for the rest of his life.

“I know you’re very busy, but when you head for Voeld the next time, I’d appreciate it if you found time to meet up with me. I’d love to hear more about your missions – reports only tell half the story,” Fahrl said.

“I can answer any questions you have if you think that’d be helpful,” Evfra said with a nod. “Those were just _my_ missions, though. Every situation is unique.”

“Of course, but I always thought I learn best by example, personally.” Fahrl smiled, pulling distractedly at the rofjinn around his neck. “If you don’t mind me asking, do you ever miss Voeld? I know Aya is safer, but it’s so hot here! I wonder how people keep their clothes on sometimes. Of course, with some, it’s a shame they do.”

His laugh was loud and affable and the appreciative look he gave Evfra lacked the ambiguity his statement still carried.

“It could be cooler. Mostly, the city seems crowded in comparison to the white plains,” Evfra answered with a shrug. “I suppose no one ever shakes off where they come from.”

“Yes! Maybe when you visit Voeld, we can go someplace nice. There’s so many pretty spots that off-worlders just don’t quite know how to appreciate, huh? It’s all icy deserts to them.”

Before Evfra had a chance to react, Fahrl tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at Jaal, now looking to him.

“I think someone wants your attention. That’s a constant theme around here, isn’t it? I can’t blame them.” He grinned as he stepped away, turning to Jaal. “Fahrl de Atam.”

“Jaal Ama Darav,” Jaal said grudgingly.

“Ama Darav... I think I’ve met your sister or cousin, perhaps – Orinna, right? She is a marvel with a firaan! And didn’t someone from your family figure out how to save power on the sun lamp batteries a few years ago? I know that doesn’t mean a lot around here, but it cut our energy costs down a lot on Voeld.”

“My sister, yes. And that would be my cousin Helos,” Jaal said. It was not unusual to have the achievements of his relatives listed for him when he first met someone. Most people had heard of his family, not as many had heard of Jaal himself. You got used to it eventually, though Jaal had never learned to like it; and it bothered him more than he cared to admit when someone as young and accomplished as Fahrl did it right under Evfra’s nose.

“Good, good. Well, Jaal, I look forward to seeing you again sometime. And Evfra, I hope we get to explore Voeld together a little. Aretesh alva tarat.”

“Alva tarata,” Evfra answered.

Jaal’s translator capitulated before what had to be a local Voeld dialect. Some sort of goodbye was all he gathered.

With a last smile at Evfra, Fahrl strode out of the room.

“I’m ready to leave for once,” Evfra told Jaal, who was still staring at Fahrl’s retreating back. When he didn’t get an answer, he added: “Or did you have something to discuss?”

“No, it’s fine,” Jaal said quickly.

-

“Fahrl seems to like you.”

Jaal had managed to keep the comment in a whole of half an hour, as long as it had taken Evfra and him to get to the apartment, heat up two bowls of paste and sit down at the table.

“He’s a flirt,” Evfra said disinterestedly.

Stabbing at his paste with his spoon, Jaal felt frustration rise. He knew that he had no real claim on Evfra, but his brain and heart were pulling in two very different directions.

After a brief moment of silence, Evfra glanced him, looking more aware now. “Are you jealous?”

“I...” Jaal stammered, but realised he was not nearly a good enough liar to get out of this one. He’d never seen the point of being dishonest about his emotions, anyway. Besides, it must have been clearly written on his face how much he disliked Fahrl. “More than I thought I would be,” he admitted.

“I barely have time for you, Jaal. What would I do with a second lover?” Evfra asked with a dismissive shake of his head. “If you worry about Fahrl, don’t. I find his constant cockiness tiring, anyway.”

The smile returned to Jaal’s face. Finally, he managed to take a bite of his food and actually taste it. Evfra liked his paste sweet, but, apparently in preparation for Jaal’s return, he had stocked some of the spicier food that Jaal preferred. Chewing on a mouthful of it, he realised just how deeply he really had ingrained himself into Evfra’s life. He’d barely remembered to feed himself, by the looks of it, but he had taken into account Jaal’s preferences when ordering his batch of rations.

“Does this give me the right to ask about your adventures on Harval?” Evfra probed.

“There were no adventures on Havarl,” Jaal said, immensely enjoying the idea that Evfra may have been bothered by the idea. “Not that kind, anyway. I have a few good stories to tell about eirochs, though.”

Evfra huffed and pushed another spoonful of food in his mouth.

“I have a question.”

Evfra looked at him expectantly.

“You said I was the only one after your husband who you took to bed. Why me? There must have been others who would have been willing.”

It was no surprise to Jaal that he wasn’t the only one who had an interest in Evfra despite his rough nature. Even Fahrl, for as little as he wanted to think positive about him, and as much as he had surely been flattering, seemed to have had a genuine appreciation of Evfra as a leader. Why shouldn’t he?

“Is that important?” Evfra asked, plainly attempting to evade the question.

“I’ve just wondered.”

Evfra put his spoon down.

“Maybe you were just there at the right moment in time,” he said, but didn’t seem to be satisfied with that, his fingers restlessly tapping the table as he halted. “And you were one of the few who still seemed interested where most people have rightfully given up because I certainly don’t encourage anyone.” He paused once more. “Those are circumstances, though. I suppose the main reason is that... I just like you. I couldn’t spend as much time as we do with someone I don’t.”

“I like you, too.”

The inflection in his voice had given the words more weight than Jaal had planned, but then, it was not a lie.

“Do you now?” Evfra asked warily.

“When I saw you with Fahrl, it – angered me. I wished I could have gone up to him and told him it was not his place.” Looking at the apprehensive expression on Evfra’s face, Jaal felt his heart sink. “I’m sorry. It’s not what we said this is.”

“No,” Evfra said, looking to the side. “What we’re doing is not what we said this is. You all but moved in with me even before you went to Havarl. We talk all the time, we share a bed not just for sex, I feel the need to write you asinine, meaningless messages when I’m half-asleep and you’re not here... it’s not a surprise it’s difficult to keep to boundaries.”

Jaal nodded his head, his tongue dry and heavy in his mouth. He could feel a ‘but’ coming.

“I don’t mind that it is. I would like it to be more,” he said, anyway. He wanted it to have the proper name and he wanted it to not be a secret.

In truth, he supposed, he wanted to say openly that he was in love with Evfra, to him and the world.

Evfra looked at him, expression unreadable.

“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that you are special to me, but I... it’s difficult for me to imagine seriously being with someone. It still seems like a betrayal even after all this time. I would be moving on from people who are only lost to me because I could not save them. Not that I ever had a real chance to, but... my mind is not open to reason on that question.”

He lifted a hand to stop Jaal from talking.

“Jaal, let me be clear for a moment. I don’t say it enough, but I know very well you are a good man whose affections would be a gift to anyone. You deserve someone less – broken than me. It would be unfair of me to ask you to wait while I try to come to terms with myself, which is not even something I can promise I can do.” He put his hand back on the table. “I can’t demand you stay faithful to me. You’re free to do what you want, with whomever you want, and if you feel you would rather leave me altogether, I will not blame you.”

As he spoke, Evfra’s voice was even, his face stern, but Jaal could feel in the slight hesitation before the offer that it was not an easy one to make. Evfra would let him go, would share him, but he wouldn’t do it happily. Jaal wouldn’t say he wasn’t disappointed, but he held on to that. It was a start.

He took Evfra’s hand over the table.

“I am not so easily bored or distracted,” he said sincerely. “Especially when I know the wait is for something worthwhile.”

Evfra said nothing, holding Jaal’s hand.


	9. Chapter 9

“I don’t _care_ what she says! I will deal with her later! Tell her to bring this alien to the HQ before they touch one damned thing in this city!”

With those words, Evfra had sent Jaal and two guards to intercept whatever welcome committee had gathered for the alien ship which had found its way to Aya. Out of the odd, elongated vessel stepped one of the soft-skinned ones who seemed to come in different shades and had fur in varying lengths growing on their head. Jaal had regarded the creature for a moment before deferring to Paaran about who would lead him to the HQ, but as soon as he had reclaimed his weapon from Moraan, one of the new recruits, he had hurried after the alien once more.

Though Jaal understood very well why they hadn’t made official contact on Kadara yet, he had become more and more interested in the intruders and he knew that many angara had lived in suspense, knowing the inevitable would come and these creatures would force first contact with the leadership on them eventually. That they would do so right here on Aya, their hidden sanctuary, was of course a great source of concern, though. He could see it in the faces of the every angara he passed on his way through the HQ.

The alien leader was called Scott Ryder. It said it was a settler from another galaxy and after Paaran, Jaal was the second angara to get a chance to talk to it, just before leading it to Evfra. Its – his – face was not so different from that of an angara that Jaal could not see that the hostile welcome seemed to worry him. When Jaal mentioned the kett, however, the alien called Scott Ryder nodded his head.

They had met the kett, too. It seemed like perhaps there were some problems they shared.

Jaal stood back as Scott and Evfra talked, only adding intel when it felt appropriate and making sure to keep his gun visible to the alien at all times. He was different than what he’d expected – more familiar, easier to read and understand. Had the kett appeared like this when they had first come to this galaxy? Now they were nameless masses, never bothering to talk to the angara except to give orders, speaking only in their own language and looking at them like they were animals. Scott Ryder was not that.

Not yet, anyway.

Perhaps he was even a little like an angara. He certainly was bold enough in his demands and calls for help. Evfra respected self-confidence, but Jaal could see he was bristling at this level of audacity. However, Jaal couldn’t help but wonder if this wasn’t the break they had waited for. Something needed to move in some direction, after all.

“Evfra... I feel what this alien says is extraordinary. The Moshae would want us to be brave and not let this chance pass,” Jaal said, suddenly. His nerves were tight like the string of a bow, but he could not hold his tongue any longer.

“Jaal, you talk too much,” Evfra answered, a warning hidden in his tone.

Jaal was well-aware he should have shut up, that this was not the kind of discussion to have right in front of the alien, and yet... it was rare that he used his position in Evfra’s favour to gain anything but kisses and compliments, but today he would abuse it to press his point past what he knew Evfra would have allowed others.

“Let me assess this alien. I’ll be your eyes. I know you can spare me.”

In a military sense, at the very least – Jaal was not his most talented lieutenant or an important leader of the troops, but he was a soldier Evfra valued for his individual skill and trusted to the utmost. He was a prime candidate for such a mission, Evfra had to see that, and Jaal wanted to finally do his part.

Evfra looked at him for a long moment, his expression unreadable.

“Go if you want. But when he tries to kill you, be prepared to strike first,” he said, grudgingly, and then walked off without a second glance. Jaal looked after him briefly before turning to the alien, who still seemed to try to figure out if the conversation had actually ended well for him.

“I’m Jaal Ama Darav. I’ll be your envoy through angaran space,” Jaal told him.

“Thank you for trusting me,” Scott Ryder said with a nod.

“I don’t. But I can always kill you in your sleep,” Jaal answered flatly.

The alien tried not to let his trepidation show and failed. “Good to know.”

Considering his own answer for a moment, Jaal wondered if being with Evfra had rubbed off on him a little.

-

Jaal met one at least of each sort of alien. He learned that humans and asari were not, as they had speculated, variations of the same species. He learned that krogans and salarians and turians were not supposed to get along, but the ones on Ryder’s ship did.

When Ryder risked his neck and those of his squad saving a team of angaran scientists, he learned that Ryder stood by his word.

There was a lot of information that he could pass on to Evfra. The most important and earliest intel was that the aliens on Kadara and the ones still in the big station they had noticed were not of the same faction anymore. It seemed that the would-be settlers’ union had already fractured.

 _Kadara seems to attract traitors_ , Evfra answered him. _Too bad that curse doesn’t extend to the kett._

In every message he received, Jaal could plainly see Evfra was not happy that Jaal was with the aliens. He didn’t trust them and he didn’t think Jaal was safe with them. However, Evfra did not recall him, neither for obstinacy nor for personal reasons; and when Scott Ryder told him about SAM, he allowed them on the mission to rescue the Moshae.

When they had brought her back , he allowed Jaal to stay with them, too. The request didn’t seem to surprise him much.

“You do good with them. Your intel is valuable and obviously this Pathfinder can use a few soldiers like you considering the breakneck missions he undertakes,” he said later, during the one night Jaal had on Aya before he needed to return to the Pathfinder’s ship, which of course he spent in Evfra’s bed. “So I suppose I must spare you sometime longer if Ryder hasn’t thought to bring his own best people. Though I could use you.”

“I’ll make sure he knows you think of me as a present of the angara,” Jaal joked.

Evfra gave him an unimpressed look and pulled him close.

It was so early in the morning when he rose that even Evfra was still asleep. Jaal disturbed him into a state of drowsy half-awakeness as he shifted out of the bed. After they had said their goodbyes, he leaned down to kiss the scar above Evfra’s eye and, on his way out, grabbed Evfra’s old, broken uni-device.

-

“We may head to Elaaden next.”

Jaal stretched out in front of his console, watching Evfra on the other side of the screen. The room he had claimed on Ryder’s ship was starting to feel like his own now that he had adjusted the alien tech to his liking.

“What do you want on Elaaden? Not even the kett get lost there too often. The Remnant vaults may need longer than our lives to make something out of that wasteland,” Evfra said.

“I figure it would take generations,” Jaal agreed with a nod. “But isn’t it amazing we could start thinking in these terms? Perhaps the angara’s grandchildren will one day be able to live there happily.”

“The Archon is not beat yet,” Evfra cautioned.

“I know, I know. The Vaults are a secondary concern, actually. One of the groups of the aliens, the krogan, can withstand the temperatures of Elaaden quite easily and have built themselves a home there.”

“Well, at least they won’t be settling our worlds, then. Yet.”

“Ryder wants to bring them back to the Initiative. They are apparently another separate group from those on Kadara.”

Evfra reached out of the frame of his camera’s eye for a bottle and took a sip of water.

“You know what I like about your aliens? They are already just as much of a mess as the angara were when I took over, or as Akksul is trying to make us at the moment.”

“That sounds more like an insult.”

“Maybe.” Evfra cocked his head. “But the kett have been here for over seventy years and they never seem to splinter off. Their obedience is commendable, perhaps, speaking as a military leader, but it has always struck me as odd for creatures that are supposedly thinking beings. Dissension in the ranks, or among people in general, is just something that will happen. Civil war isn’t what I’d call healthy, but neither is everyone marching in line to the same beat all the time.”

Jaal hummed softly.

“I agree. Speaking of Akksul, how are things working out at the moment?”

Evfra frowned.

“Not great. I try to keep in contact with the Roekaar. I think they’re short-sighted fools, but I can hardly go to a mother who has lost all her children to the kett and demand lenience of her towards newcomers. Who I am to command someone’s feelings? Not everyone forgives easily. I have hopes some of them may yet see how futile their endeavour is if we don’t make return impossible for them, though.”

“But you’ll allow the Nexus settlement on Voeld, won’t you?”

“It won’t make me popular with the Roekaar, not to mention quite a few other people, but yes. Ryder has done enough to win the trust of the locals around the main base that I won’t have them banging at the settlers’ doors. And,” he hesitated briefly, “the Nexus people have helped us, too. They deserve that we don’t stonewall them at every opportunity. Diplomacy must work both ways. They haven’t said it, I assume so they won’t seem desperate, but I would guess they badly need the water that ice farming on Voeld can grant them on Eos.”

Jaal smiled. In truth, he had feared for a while that Evfra might harden his heart, too, even if it was not his way to put his emotions over practicality. Everyone had lost to the kett, but Evfra more than most. As he’d said himself, it was difficult to direct the feelings of someone who’d experienced tragedy of such magnitude. How did you appeal to the reason of someone who’d felt grief beyond what reason could explain?

“What is it now?” Evfra asked into his pause.

“I’m proud of the things we have achieved. All of us,” Jaal said. Even if some of the revelations were terrible –the true nature of the kett, for example, was still a source of nightmares for him –, it was better to know.

“It certainly feels like we are making real headway for the first time in a long time, thanks to that A.I. stuck in your Pathfinder’s head. Though I am happy to say the Resistance has been able to follow up on Ryder’s and your achievements, too. It’s good to see our people so ready to jump on any chance to prove that we are not beaten.”

The small smile on Evfra’s face made Jaal’s heart flutter. It was so nice to see him genuinely pleased. Jaal had many reasons to be here and do what he did, but Evfra’s smile was one of his most personal rewards.

“You have shown me a lot of new sides, too, Jaal. Soon enough, there might be little reason for me to keep you around instead of giving you other assignments. It’d be a waste for you to stay on Aya much.” Evfra tilted his head once more, the edges of his tone just a little softened. “It feels strange to say one of my men developing his capabilities is a pity.”

Now Jaal laughed, delighted. It was rare for Evfra to admit even to this much.

“Ah, you may find some downtime for me in my schedule, won’t you? After all, I think I am needed on Aya sometimes, too.”

Evfra made an undefined noise that Jaal liked to think was agreement.


	10. Chapter 10

From the other side of the screen, Evfra looked at Jaal with his full lips pressed into a thin line. He hadn’t said a word in minutes, instead listening to Jaal tell the whole story of Akksul’s activities at the Forge and how they had exposed him before his people.

“Are your siblings back home? Is your brother alright?” he asked, finally.

“Yes. They are well. My brother was not seriously injured, I think the shock felled him more than anything. Teviint is the one most affected, but she should be. What she did was unacceptable.”

Still, she was family and you could forgive a lot if you wanted to – needed to. There was no sense in creating rifts that hurt everybody in the end. Too many family members had died for anyone to be cast out easily.

“Good.” Evfra paused. “Are you insane?”

Jaal looked at him, his expression clouded with confusion.

“What...”

“I thought when you said you were going to explain to me what happened, we wouldn’t end up with the same things that my contacts have told me! I did expect you not to have let Akksul shoot you at point-blank range because that seems like something you are too smart to do!”

“It was calculated risk, I-”

“The man is not of sound mind. There was absolutely nothing to tell you he wouldn’t shoot at you if given the chance and in fact he _did_! And what kind of a leader is this Pathfinder that he would stand idly by while a squad member is being threatened at gunpoint?!”

“Ryder had nothing to do with it, I told him to do that. It was my decision,” Jaal argued.

“It was a _terrible_ decision!” Evfra snapped and opened his mouth to continue, but there was another voice, indistinct, off-screen. For a moment, he turned his head away listened, then took a deep breath and seemed to swallow a whole mouthful of further comments.

“I have to go,” he groused. “We’ll continue this later. Kindly don’t get yourself killed in the meantime. Whatever you and Ryder think on the matter, we don’t have the manpower left to just throw away the lives of good soldiers to prove a point.”

The feed cut so abruptly that there was a crackling pop of audio feedback. Jaal stared at the black screen, his heart seizing up. Of course he had expected to be questioned about his actions. He had taken a big risk, but it hadn’t been idly so. He knew Akksul better than both Evfra and Ryder and shouldn’t Evfra trust him that much?

Or had he really been stupid? Jaal asked himself. Was it seeing his siblings – his sister shooting his brother, all of them fraught with blind hate in a way that clashed so much with the image he’d had of them – that had driven him to an irresponsible extreme? Yet they seemed to have done the right thing. The Roekaar had reacted as he’d hoped to watching Akksul turn on one of his own people. Even Akksul’s eyes had looked like those of one startling awake from a nightmare as he watched the blood trickle down over Jaal’s jaw.

Evfra had been so appreciative of Jaal’s work with the Pathfinder up to now, even when the things they discovered were terrible, world-shaking. Together, they had sat and talked over the secret of exaltation and the birth of the angaran civilisation by the Jardaan. Evfra valued his opinions and his intel and had voiced a couple of times that he was happy that it was Jaal who he had sent on this mission, since not many could have borne the brunt of these revelations with such resilience.

The way he had looked at him just now, it seemed like that respect had collapsed like an old Remnant ruin.

While he still mulled over Evfra’s words, the inter-ship comm sprang to life. “Yo, Jaal, you coming?”

“Coming?” Jaal asked, distractedly. There were in the middle of deep space.

“Hello, movie night?” Liam asked with a chuckle. “It’s not like we haven’t all spend long enough building it up, huh?”

“Oh yes,” Jaal muttered. “I will be right over. In the Pathfinder’s quarters?”

“See you there,” Liam said and logged off the comms.

With a heavy heart, Jaal got up, distractedly running his fingers over the fresh wound on his cheek.

-

“So, what did you think about our Milky Way flicks?” Vetra asked, as she, Liam and Jaal pushed the couch back into place in Liam’s living chambers.

“I’m not sure Jaal really liked them,” Liam answered before Jaal had a chance to. “Unless angara show enjoyment a lot different than we do – maybe by looking at their feet a lot.”

Jaal glanced at the two of them and gave the sofa another push with his knee to right its position.

“I’m sorry. I was distracted. It’s something personal.”

Also, the copious amounts of romantic scenes hadn’t helped his mood, either. Who wanted to see two people declare their undying love to each other when the last time they had looked at the one they wished to hold in their arms, he’d stared at them as if he wanted to hit them across the face?

“Got it. If you don’t want us asking, we won’t,” Vetra said.

Jaal hesitated. As a matter of fact, he _did_ wish he could talk to someone about his troubles. It wasn’t like him to keep it all bottled up. But would Evfra be mad at him if he spoke freely about a relationship they hadn’t made public yet, that maybe even wasn’t one? Then again, Vetra and Liam weren’t angara, which meant they were not people who instantly had a connection to Evfra just by the virtue of the Resistance playing some role in the life of every angara who hadn’t run off to Kadara. They were also both not known to treat information spoken in secret without the proper reverence.

“It’s fine. You’re my friends, I wish I could have been a bit more engaged tonight. If you do have a moment, I would like to talk in confidence...”

“Sure, always,” Liam said, falling down on the couch.

“Is it because of what happened with your sister?” Vetra guessed. She had taken her place on the other end of the sofa, so Jaal sat down between them.

“I do worry about my siblings, but for now, they are safe and everything apart from that can eventually be talked about, made up for – forgiven, I hope.” He looked at the ceiling, wondering how best to begin. “You know Evfra, right?”

“Of course. Your Resistance leader,” Vetra answered.

“The blue one with the scary scars,” Liam added with a nod. “Seen him around a couple times on Aya. You’ve talked about him, too.”

“Did you get in trouble with your boss?” Vetra asked.

“Yes. Although – that wouldn’t bother me as much.”

He’d still be worried that Evfra thought less of him, but it wouldn’t leave a bitter taste in his mouth and that queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Liam and Vetra seemed out of ideas and waited.

“Evfra and me are... not together – lovers? But it extends beyond the physical. I don’t really know which word would describe it in your languages.” It was such a precarious relationship right on the brink, he could barely find the right word in Shelesh.

Liam whistled.

“That guy? Every time I’ve seen him he looked ready to eat someone alive.”

“He’s not the softest person,” Jaal agreed, “but angara respect him greatly for all he has done and so do I. And once he let me in, I saw... different sides of him. I wish he’d smile more, but I can’t help but feel special that he smiles mostly at me. Plus, you should hear him talk of Voeld the way he saw it when he was a boy, the dancing snowflakes and the lights in the sky. At home, when he thinks I’m asleep, he’ll sometimes sing old folk songs to himself – he sings well, too, I could listen to it for hours. When I carry my gun for too long so it hurts my shoulder, he’ll rub my back. And in bed...” He stopped himself in his sentimental recollections. “Ah, I remember. Your peoples don’t talk about that.”

“We do with friends, sometimes,” Vetra said, obviously bemused. “But where’s the catch? Sounds like you got a great connection.”

“That’s what I thought. But I fear I’ve lost his respect. He’s very angry about how I handled the situation with Akksul.”

“To be fair, it was dangerous,” Liam said. “I do think it was a good move, though.”

“Still, would you be happy to hear about your girlfriend doing that kind of thing, Liam?” Vetra asked.

“Maybe not, but I don’t think I’d be angry.”

“I think I would be,” Vetra said. She paused, looking at Jaal. “You said you weren’t really together. Why not?”

“I’m the first lover he’s had in nearly a decade. His whole family was taken by the kett, including his husband and children.” The shook his head. “He says he likes me, but he feels guilty, living his life with someone else, and he needs some time.”

Vetra clicked her mandibles and Liam rolled his eyes.

“Well, there you go!” Liam said.

“Go where?” Jaal asked blankly.

“I mean, isn’t it clear? Dude’s already lost everyone he loved to exaltation or some kett bullshit like that. What do you think went through his mind when he heard of your stunt with Akksul?”

“But that’s not what he said. He was angry for how I handled the situation-”

“Did he seem annoyed or furious?” Vetra interrupted him.

“Furious,” Jaal said, thinking about the way Evfra had stared at him through the screen.

“Yeah, I doubt it was just criticism of your tactical manoeuvres, then. And I think that’s a good sign. If he’s this pissed thinking he could’ve lost you, he must like you a lot. Maybe more than he admitted to himself before,” Vetra answered. 

“What she said. Seems pretty obvious to me.”

Jaal stared between the two of them. How could it be obvious to two people who hadn’t even been present and yet have totally escaped him? But when they put it like that, he had to admit it wasn’t a bad explanation. It was just so unusual not to simply hear any of that from Evfra. Most other angara would have yelled in your face how you dared make them worry like that.

“It’s not _that_ obvious,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “Is this guesswork what human relationships are always like? And turian ones?” he asked.

Liam laughed and Vetra snorted.

“More often than they should be,” she said.

“No joke. But pin him down on this, Jaal. You got the angaran thing going for you. You people expect each other to be honest with your emotions, right? He’ll know that, too.”

Slowly, Jaal nodded his head. Evfra was frustrating sometimes – and Jaal realised that it was something he would have to accept, would probably always run into if he was with him. Evfra had not been dramatic when he called himself broken. The marks on Evfra’s skin were only the most visible part of the hurt done to him, and, much like he’d always carry them, his soul would never be as it had been before.

However, he was willing to accept that, he realised, to be hurt by Evfra at times if that was what it took. The good still outweighed the bad by so much.

“Thank you for your help,” he said, serenely. “I think I was not seeing... the forest for the bushes?”

“The trees,” Liam corrected, grinning. “I get it, though. It’s always more difficult when your own feelings are on the line. But that’s what friends are for, right?”

“Yes,” Jaal said, smiling.

When he had returned to his quarters, Jaal opened up his messages, intent on asking Evfra when they could finish their conversation. However, as he touched the inbox icon on his uni-device, a new text from Evfra was already sitting right at the top.


	11. Chapter 11

_Jaal,_

_I didn’t mean for our last conversation to end like it did. There was an emergency transmission from Voeld that I couldn’t put off._

_You should know that quite a few Roekaar have already reported back to Resistance stations or returned to their families. I am not any happier about what you did, but I must concede your would-be sacrifice has shown them clearly what Akksul has become and the road they themselves had taken._

_I will be off the grid for another two days at most dealing with this. When I’m back, I’ll message you so we can talk._

_Stay strong and clear,  
Evfra_

Jaal had read the message half a dozen times, using it like a band aid over the scrapes the fight with Evfra had left on his heart. It sounded like Evfra had calmed down since they had last spoken and while it was not quite an apology, his practical mindset had forced him to acknowledge that Jaal’s plan had been effective.

While Jaal was waiting for Evfra to get back to him, Ryder had taken them to Kadara port to handle a few matters with the new leader, the Charlatan. He seemed to believe that his identity was still a secret to Evfra, judging by a conversation between Ryder and him that Jaal was present for. Apparently his own intel had failed him on Jaal’s person or he vastly overestimated Jaal’s loyalty to the criminals and traitors that ruled over Kadara port; the first thing he had done once Reyes Vidal and his puppet ruler were installed was to give Evfra every scrap of information he could find about them.

When official matters were over with, Jaal usually stayed on the ship if they didn’t go into the Badlands beyond the port. The toxic wilderness of Kadara’s nature he could handle, that of its society not so much. This time, however, he lingered with Scott, Vetra and Drack out in the landing bay area.

“Don’t you hate this place?” Drack asked, as they waited for the door to the main port to check the access codes on Ryder’s omni-tool and verify they were registered as parked, or at least as having bribed someone enough to be in the system.

“I do,” Jaal answered with conviction. “But because they are criminals, they have access to some things normal traders don’t.”

“You can say that again,” Vetra muttered.

“You’re making me curious now,” Ryder noted.

“It’s just a part I need for a project. It pains me to have to go to these people to acquire it, but I haven’t found a legal way.”

“Just ask me next time, I won’t tell you where it’s from,” Vetra offered with a chuckle.

-

Though Jaal did not approve of just how well Vetra manoeuvred Kadara – it implied too much familiarity with people like this –, he had to admit that her assistance made the trip much more bearable. He didn’t even want to imagine having to play nice with the scavengers and smugglers to find his way to the right merchant and then try to haggle with them about the Ishera-type micro-sized power conductor he needed. To Vetra, however, it seemed to be second nature and twenty minutes after they had entered the port, Jaal was holding the part wrapped in a stained, grey cloth without ever having had to speak a word to anyone but her.

“Can I ask what you’re building?” Vetra asked. She had convinced Jaal to sit down with her to have a drink at Kalla’s Song. Eyeing the slightly smudged glass in front of him, Jaal took a small sip. Milky Way drinks always stung a little more than angara alcohol on his tongue.

“I think that would be fair. You have helped me build it now, in a way,” he said. “Evfra has an old uni-device someone made for him back before he led the Resistance. It broke long ago, but he’s kept it all these years hoping he could get it fixed some day. It took a while, but this is the last piece I needed.”

“Uni-devices are your omni-tools, right?”

“Yes, although unlike yours, ours have messaging functions. It’s quite old-fashioned to always have to return to a terminal on the ship to check your mail.”

“Tell me about it. I hope they get some stable wireless up soon.” She lowered her mandibles a little which Jaal was fairly sure meant something like interest. “So is it a special device?”

“It has an interface I haven’t seen before, but I think it has more sentimental value than anything.”

Vetra clicked her claw against the side of the glass.

“You really like this guy, don’t you?”

“Of course. I’m in love with him.”

She huffed a laugh and raised her drink to her mouth. “Still sometimes blindsides me how honest you are.”

“Wouldn’t you say if you were in love with someone? There’s nothing shameful about that.”

“I guess not, but it’s just... you make yourself kind of vulnerable, don’t you? Especially considering you aren’t all the way together.”

“Vulnerability is part of being in love – loving at all, really,” Jaal argued. “If you don’t open your heart, how can you be a partner to anyone?”

“Makes it easy to get hurt, though,” Vetra cautioned.

That was a lesson Jaal had learned early. It had never deterred him.

“Well... apparently I am a risk-taker. Evfra has let me know in detail.”

They both chuckled.

“You’ll patch it up, I’m sure. All of it. If he’s worth it, he’ll make it up to you that he let you wait.”

“He makes it up to me every time we are together,” Jaal said, heart-felt.

Vetra shook her head.

“You’re insufferable,” she gave back and Jaal could hear in her voice that she didn’t mean it the way she said it. He was getting better at understanding these aliens.

-

“Jaal?”

Jaal’s mind was still enveloped in fog as a hand on his shoulder shook him awake. Blinking into the dim orange glow meant to simulate night, he saw Ryder in his civilian clothes, which looked askew, like they had been hastily pulled on.

“What is it?” he asked quietly. Above him Liam was already stirring in the bunk bed.

“We have an urgent vidcon request from Paaran Shie.”

“The governor?” Jaal asked, tongue and thoughts still heavy with sleep.

“Yeah. Do you know what this could be about? Evfra was always our contact.”

“He’s not there right now. Maybe something happened to Aya?”

The realisation worked like a bucket of water in his face. He sat up.

Ryder frowned.

“Let’s find out. You should be there.”

Already Jaal was stumbling to his feet and reaching for his suit. He needed barely a minute until he clambered up the ladder then hurried down the corridor and up the stairs to the vidcom hub, where Ryder was waiting. An emergency transmission from Aya could only mean bad things. Had the kett finally found their way there? Were their exertions concerning the Vaults all for nothing in the end? Aya was not the only planet on which angara lived, but if it fell to the kett, Jaal was afraid it would break the backbone of any kind of moral they had left.

Ryder nodded to him before he switched on the console. They waited a long moment. Breathing became progressively harder; it felt to Jaal like his ribcage tried to squeeze his lungs like someone would wring water out of cloth.

Finally, Paaran’s picture flickered to life in front of them.

“Governor,” Jaal said, echoed by Ryder.

“Pathfinder, Jaal. Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. We have a problem.”

“That’s what we figured,” Ryder said.

“Is Aya in danger?” Jaal blurted out.

“No, Aya is safe. However, Evfra went missing with a team on Voeld. Best as we can tell, the kett took them.”

The blood ran cold in Jaal’s veins.

“We have our own teams we could send, but intel from Voeld indicates that where they were going, they would have needed codes that have high-level security clearance. They were probably those created to break into the exaltation facility with the help of your AI, Pathfinder. That may be why Evfra accompanied them himself. If the codes have been adjusted again now that the kett noticed intruders, you may have a better chance to reach them than any of us using your AI. I understand it is faster than the kett code modifications.” She paused briefly. “I can only ask you, Pathfinder, to do it as a favour. The ancestors know Evfra and I don’t see eye to eye all the time, but if we lose him... we cannot afford to have the Resistance weakened like this right now.”

“Pathfinder, please...” Jaal began.

Lifting his hands, Ryder sought to stop both Paaran and Jaal.

“Of course we’ll help. We can’t let our allies take a hit like that while we’re trying to build a force against the Archon. Can you give us the coordinates?”

“The Resistance on Voeld base will know more than me. You should talk to them.”

“Acknowledged. I will get back to you soon.”

“Thank you, Pathfinder,” Paaran said. The room grew dark around them as her image faded. Jaal stared at the space where she had been.

“We need to go right now, Pathfinder!” he urged, turning, as soon as words returned to his blank mind.

“Don’t worry, I’ll wake Kallo and tell him to set the coordinates now. We’ll get Evfra back.” Seeing Jaal’s face, he tried for a smile. “I didn’t work this hard to gain his approval to let him be taken. Besides, I’ve met him. He is much too stubborn to let a few kett do him in, don’t you think?”

Though Jaal understood Ryder was trying to make him feel better, he could not crack a smile. He’d known many men and women whose strength had made them seem untouchable and they had been stolen or slaughtered just like everyone else. Evfra was special – to the angara, to Jaal. However, if you put a blade to his throat, he could die like anyone else.


	12. Chapter 12

“So far, this is the best guess we have.”

On their large, ball-shaped map of Voeld, Anjik Do Xeel zoomed in on an unidentifiable grey smudge nestled into a snowy mountain range. Jaal found himself staring hard, as if he could summon a picture of Evfra by the act.

“We only got the intel about an hour ago. It’s relatively close to where we expected Evfra and his team to be. The distress signal we got was paged from a kett console, but it was using Resistance encryption codes. Not our current ones, mind you, but old ones.”

“What does that mean?” Ryder asked.

She glanced back at the map.

“We know for a fact the kett have cracked some of our more recent encryptions, so if they were trying to lure us into a trap, that’s probably what they would use – not to mention that they’d find one of our transmitters to do it from. There’s a good chance this is actually a Resistance member calling for help while simultaneously trying to hide the latest encryption protocols.”

“Clever. If it was someone captured by the kett, they don’t really need to properly encrypt their message, anyway. It’s not like they’d be asking for anything else but help,” Liam said.

“That’s what we figured,” the woman said. “It was probably just designed as a ping to give us their location.”

“Then we’ll head there first,” Ryder decided.

Anjik Do Xeel nodded.

“Stay strong and clear, Pathfinder, and call us if you need reinforcements. We stand ready to help.”

-

The rides in the Nomad had always felt almost too comfortable to Jaal before, the way the spring system softened the jumps and falls and lulled him into inattentive drowsiness by leaving only the swaying motions. Today, it was like every one of his nerves was strung up like the sites of a rivan. He was wide awake and the movements of the car made him sick. As he checked his gun for the dozenth time, he saw Liam looking at him.

“Hey, Jaal. You doin’ okay?”

“No,” he muttered. The thoughts he’d had during the sleepless night were far from himself. He’d never been a pacifist concerning the kett, but not since his brother had been taken had he felt such rage and imagined in vivid detail how he would sink his blade through their plating to leave them bleeding out on the floor.

“We’ll find them, Jaal,” Ryder said, turning the steering wheel to send them downwards into a ravine.

“Pathfinder, we’re approaching the coordinates of the distress call. There seems to be a kett structure ahead,” SAM’s even voice spoke into the loaded silence in their car. Jaal looked over Ryder’s shoulder, trying to make out the jagged shapes through the whirling snow that was pressed against their front window by the headwind.

“It seems – unfinished,” Jaal said. Fortified kett facilities looked compact and closed-off from the outside. He’d seen enough in his lifetime to notice this one was odd: several smaller prefab buildings only connected by narrow tunnels like tubes, and crates standing all about.

“It may well be. The most recent maps the Resistance shared with us did not show a kett facility in this area, but some unidentified construction activity marked as specially shielded,” SAM responded.

“Let’s approach on foot,” Ryder cautioned, slowing the Nomad behind a large boulder. They jumped out of the car into a blanket of snow, sinking in to the ankles, with the wind blowing hard in their faces. Jaal grabbed his weapon tightly.

Though the snow made it hard to see the facility in the distance, it would give the kett the same problems as them. They approached carefully, sticking behind cover, and managed to get up to the energy shield without triggering an alarm. The crackling sheet of shifting blue distorted the air in front of them.

“We can use the modified angara codes for this,” SAM noted after Ryder had scanned the shivering barrier of light. “I may be able to make it look like a glitch in the system if you can pass in under a second.”

“It’s just a step,” Ryder said, looking over his shoulder at Liam and Jaal. “You ready? SAM?”

“Yes, Pathfinder.”

“On three. One, two...”

The energy barrier blinked out of existence and Ryder, Liam and Jaal threw themselves across the invisible line in the snow. Right after they had stepped inside, SAM let the barrier blink back into existences.

“Not usually our style to go the sneaky route,” Liam noted.

“They would be smart enough to use Evfra as a hostage if they saw a frontal attack,” Jaal said, restlessly stepping on the spot as he waited for SAM to unlock the door. “They know what he means to the angara. He has been a thorn in their side for years.”

“Yeah, I get it. I don’t need to kick down the door, either. Probably lots of nasty stuff waiting for us on the other side.”

Finally, the halves of the door parted, allowing them to step into a dark hall illuminated only by floor lamps. There was open wiring along the sides and the ceiling. Jaal spotted stacks of crates with wall shielding and steel beams on the ground.

“They don’t seem to have gotten very far yet,” Liam murmured as they quietly moved ahead. “More of a shell than anything.”

“We probably disturbed their plans on Voeld,” Jaal said with bitter satisfaction. “They can’t move their slave labourers so freely now that we disabled the main base and emptied their exaltation facility.”

“That’s something,” Ryder said. Another door opened before them, revealing one more empty corridor that separated into two.

“Where to?” Jaal asked.

“Any ideas, SAM?”

“I could track the distress signal to the exact spot in the building from which it was sent.”

There was a moment of silence. Jaal listened in the dark for footsteps, but heard nothing.

“Go left,” SAM advised them.

The left path, too, was devoid of guards and workers.

“Are we heading into an ambush?” Liam asked.

Jaal made sure that the safety on his weapon was off. He’d had the same idea, but the next door still revealed nothing but more half-finished rooms. This one was to be a laboratory, he guessed by the equipment and forced down a wave of nausea following the pictures that flooded his mind.

“Pathfinder, the structural plans of this facility match the ones of the building designated for exaltation,” SAM spoke into the quiet.

“That would explain why the codes you modified work. They may be using the same type of shields,” Ryder answered.

“But the other one’s still standing. Couldn’t they keep using that one?” Liam asked.

“Construction plans were likely begun before the Pathfinder made first contact with the angara,” SAM said.

“They’re just trying to get more efficient – turn us all into them as fast as they can,” Jaal said through his teeth.

“This seems the likely explanation,” SAM agreed with his usual lack of passion.

“Goddamn kett,” Liam muttered.

As the next door opened, there was a sudden burst of kett voices in the distance, harshly talking over each other. Ryder lifted his hand.

The voices, however, were not headed for them. As they inched forward down the hallway, they found it opening onto a round chamber in which a dozen kett foot soldiers stood around a door, half of them attempting to pry it open while the other half seemed to be in conflict. Jaal didn’t understand all of what they said through their squabbling, but he caught enough to hear they were discussing ways to get inside.

“Pathfinder,” SAM said just loud enough for Jaal to hear it, too, “the signal came from behind that door.”

“Alright,” Ryder said, taking his assault rifle from his back, “let’s take care of this.”

Liam opened fire with a well-placed frag grenade right into the middle of the commotion which Jaal followed up with a shot right between the eyes of the first kett to turn around in shock.

With no cover to hide behind, they were forced to go all in. Ryder’s biotics flung kett in all directions, dashing heads at the ceiling and bones on the floor. As often as his cloak would allow it, Jaal moved swiftly and undetected, never allowing them to get a reading on his position on the battle field. Liam’s grenades did the rest to confuse their prey.

The battle was short, bloody, and chaotic, but in the end, they stood and the kett were on the ground.

Ryder stepped towards the door.

“Hello? This is Pathfinder Ryder with the Nexus. Is anyone in there still alive?”

“Pathfinder?”

The deep voice behind the door was laboured and raspy, but Jaal recognised it at once.

“Evfra!” he called, his heart in his throat.

“Ah...” Evfra inhaled sharply. “I destroyed the power lines to the door. If you want to get in, you’ll have to reroute energy somehow. I figure your little scuffle may have attracted too much attention for you to have time for experiments, though.” Another deep breath to support his failing voice. “My people are downstairs in the cells... the first lost team that we were looking for, too. They’re the priority. Get them out of here.”

“There was a generator to power the lamps in the corridor we came through,” Jaal told Ryder, a plea in his voice. He wanted to save the teams, but he could not bear to leave Evfra here, with only a piece of metal to divide them. 

“Give us a moment, Evfra,” Ryder said, walking backwards, the hand with the scanner outstretched. Jaal followed him reluctantly, his eyes on the door, but hurried to point out the mobile generator he had noticed sitting in a corner.

With SAM’s help, the power was quickly rerouted, and a hiss of decompression came from behind them as the lower part of the horizontally opening door fell with a loud rattle. Apparently the kett had already damaged it quite a bit in their exertions. Had they come just a little later, the would have broken through.

Jaal hurried forward, Ryder and Liam on his heels. Ducking under the upper part of the door, they stepped into a room with several consoles installed against the walls. Two kett laid dead on the ground, one with his own Vakarsh embedded several inches deep in his eye, the other face-down in a pool of green blood. The main generator in the room was still burning, sputtering sparks, spreading a smell of smouldering cables and melting plastic.

In the middle of the room stood Evfra, leaning heavily on a Naladen, the standard kett explosive rounds sniper rifle. The plating of his armour was torn to pieces over his stomach and blood had dried and congealed in blue rivulets as it had run down his torso and his legs. 

All thoughts of secrecy were forgotten when Jaal saw him standing there. Liam knew and what would Ryder care? He hurried forward, taking Evfra’s face in his hands, brushing a thumb along his cheek and leaning their foreheads together.

“Evfra...”

“Calm down, Jaal. I’m alive.”

Though pained, his voice still carried authority and some compassion. He lifted a hand to touch his arm and gripped it tightly.

The assurance paired with proximity slowed Jaal’s racing heart for the moment, though he could plainly see that Evfra was still bleeding and had a hard time keeping upright. Looking back, Jaal saw mild surprise on Ryder’s face, but he shook it off fast.

“Did you send the distress call?” he asked Evfra.

“Yes. I hoped the Resistance would be able to use it as a beacon.”

“They did. They sent us because we had direct access to SAM’s codes,” Ryder said.

“Well, I appreciate the rescue, but I’m in no fighting shape,” Evfra gave back, breathless. “I overheard them talking. They wanted to keep my teams here as slaves and bring me somewhere more secure. When they took me out of the cell, I bolted and made it up here, but I took a burst of plasma projectiles to the stomach when I fought the guards.”

“We can’t leave you here,” Jaal said. “The kett will find you.”

“But if we _all _sit here and wait for the kett to corner us, that doesn’t help us, either,” Evfra said.__

__“Can you walk?” Ryder asked._ _

__“It won’t be fast, but yes.”_ _

__“Just hold on to that rifle, then. We will get everyone out of here,” Ryder promised._ _

__“Always wondered about your optimism.”_ _

__Evfra pushed himself to stand up straight with the help of his Naladan and Jaal reached to support him, but Evfra shook his head, pushing his hand away in a motion that was too gentle to be a rebuke._ _

__“You’ll need to move freely if the kett jump us. I can carry my weight.”_ _

__With hesitation, Jaal nodded his head. They all made their way out of the room._ _

__“This way leads downstairs.” Evfra pointed down another corridor with loose cables hanging from the ceilings. “They don’t have one of their leaders here. I don’t think they expected to make a bigger catch. Still, there is a sizeable number of kett soldiers and heavies. If we can free the teams before we engage, we have a better chance of making it out alive,” Evfra said, as they pushed on._ _

__“We’ll keep that in mind,” Ryder answered with a nod._ _

__This time, they were not so lucky to walk undisturbed. As they headed down the long corridors, the echoes carried the sound of other footsteps and voices drawing closer. They turned a corner and in the twilight of sparse floor lamps, Jaal saw several kett haul themselves out of holes in the earth at the end of a long tunnel._ _

__When the first shots fell, Evfra had already ducked behind a crate way in the back. He didn’t seem intent on participating in the fight except for firing the odd explosive round into an Anointed kett’s hulking body and Jaal was happy for that. It allowed him to move forward and take care of the threats. The dark gave him opportunities to cloak, flit like a shadow, an unpredictable presence on the battlefield that confused his enemies so that Ryder and Liam could pick them off more easily._ _

__The group had been small, no match for them, probably intended as scouts to figure out what the noise had been. Once they had been dispatched, Ryder was the first to grab on to the ladder from which the kett had ascended out of the holes, with Liam shortly behind. Jaal looked back for Evfra while he reached for ammunition for his rifle._ _

__The flash in the air behind Evfra happened so fast that Jaal had no time to react – not with an empty gun, at least. All he could do was scream Evfra’s name. Evfra shot around in time to see the Wraith shed its disguise and strain to jump._ _

__It all went by in a flash. Evfra tore up his gun and fired. A shot hit the Wraith in the stomach and exploded on impact, singing its flesh. The pain made it curl up and foiled its coordinated lounge for the throat, but it still barrelled into Evfra regardless, taking them both down in a heap._ _

__Jaal jumped forward. Just as Evfra was attempting to beat the confused creature off with bare fists, he grabbed it by the back off the neck and slit its throat with his Firaan. Warm blood gushed down over Jaal’s fingers and from there onto Evfra’s face and chest._ _

__“Jaal, Evfra! You got this?” Ryder had pulled himself up the ladder again, a hand resting on his sidearm._ _

__“Yes,” Jaal said, tugging Evfra to his feet, steadying him. “I think. Evfra?”_ _

__“Just go down there before the kett send more people to intercept us,” Evfra huffed, clinging on to Jaal’s shoulder, his one hand still grasping the Naladen as he urged him to move forward. However, he stopped briefly, dropping it to grab a Rozerad pistol from a kett body instead._ _

__“I put my weight on the back foot like you taught me,” he said quietly. “But I think I’m leaving the sniping to you from now on.”_ _

__Even amidst all this, Jaal had to smile._ _

__-_ _

__“They’re going to have the main forces holed up in there guarding the prisoners,” Evfra said as they approached the next set of doors._ _

__“So how can we get them out to help us fight?” Liam asked._ _

__“If you got in here, I assume the Pathfinder’s AI can override the locks,” Evfra told him._ _

__“If they resemble other kett locks we have found, that is correct,” SAM assessed._ _

__“Good. We will just have to keep the kett off of you while you to do it, Pathfinder. Easier said than done, but I don’t see another way.”_ _

__“Overriding locks is a simple process for me even with a relay. If you take someone’s uni-device or omni-tool and let me interface with it, you can open the locks, Evfra,” SAM said. “Since you can’t really participate in the fight, that might result in better odds.”_ _

__“The AI has a point,” Evfra said. “Let’s do it like that.”_ _

__“Wouldn’t it be better if you stood back completely?” Jaal asked._ _

__“Yes, but we’re not going to block a fighter from participating if we don’t have to,” Evfra said, nodding towards the Pathfinder. “Give me your uni-device.”_ _

__Reluctantly, Jaal pulled it off his wrist and handed it over. The orb above it flickered briefly as SAM projected part of its data onto it._ _

__“It’ll work out. Bad odds is what we do,” Ryder said, reaching for the door. “Ready?”_ _

__“Roger,” Liam said._ _

__“And me,” Jaal added, glancing at Evfra._ _

__“Acknowledged,” Evfra murmured._ _

__The doors opened and a grenade flew straight towards Ryder’s face._ _

__It set the pace of the battle to come. Evfra, staggering badly, moved as fast as he could for the cage closest to the door while the three of them created a living wall to cover his movements. Bullets flew in all directions._ _

__The first cage opened, releasing a half-dozen angaran men and women. Evfra pressed his Rozerad into the hand of the first one stumbling towards him. Keeping an eye on a target ducking on high ground, Jaal reached to his hip, following his example by pushing his Firaan onto the closest captive._ _

__Every kett that fell was another weapon for the angara. There were too many people on both sides stacked in the same room for coordination; blood mixed red and green and blue on the ground, muddled with footprints. A bullet fired by a resistance fighter next to him almost singed the skin on Jaal’s head. By the time the third cage sprung open, Jaal felt deafened by the gunfire. He’d taken a painful strike of a Vakarsh to the calf and was limping himself now, and he saw Liam holding his arm._ _

__When the battle came to an end, it was with a slow realisation, people wildly pointing their guns searching for the next target before they noticed none were left. A couple of the angara had to be carried out by their comrades and those who Jaal guessed were from the team captured first looked dehydrated and drained of sunlight, moving slowly with unfocused gazes. Still, they didn’t have to leave behind any corpses of their own._ _

__People crowded around Evfra too much for Jaal to find him until, raising his voice, he commanded them to beat an orderly retreat following the Pathfinder. Armed with kett weapons, they clambered up the ladders, heaving up the unconscious ones. Jaal was separated by the current of soldiers from Evfra and only located him again by following his voice in the echoing corridor._ _

__“There must be a prisoner transport vehicle outside, they’ve talked about it,” Evfra said. “We can take that to drive home to base.”_ _

__They took the way out that they’d come in to minimise surprises. Jaal stayed at the very back of the procession, bringing up the rear to make sure there’d be no ambush from behind._ _

__With his view on the whole group before him, he noticed Evfra had separated from the throng and turned his back to the other angara, standing still. As he closed in on him, Jaal heard Evfra coughing and saw him looking at something in the hollow of his hand._ _

__It was blood, seeping blue between his fingers, and, as he turned to look at Jaal, he saw it dripping down his lips and over his chin. They held eye contact for a moment before Evfra’s eyes fluttered shut and he collapsed, just close enough for Jaal to bridge the gap and catch his body before it hit the floor._ _


	13. Chapter 13

“Jaal?”

Evfra’s voice sounded dark like stone rubbing on stone, hollow and exhausted. Jaal, who had been sitting at the foot of his bed reading a datapad detailing the history of the asari without processing a single sentence, nearly jumped out of his skin.

Evfra was looking up at him, very clearly still in a haze, his pupils blown as wide as a human’s. Jaal almost kicked the chair over in his haste to get up, taking Evfra’s hand and unable to do anything but smile for a moment. He might have cried if he hadn’t spent his tears during the five-hour operation.

“Where am I?” Evfra asked, turning his head.

“The Tempest med bay,” Lexi said, pushing herself off from her desk in the back of the room. Jaal had forgotten she was here for a moment when Evfra spoke. “It’s becoming a bit of a theme for angara leadership, it seems.”

“You collapsed in the facility on Voeld,” Jaal said, raising Evfra’s knuckles to his lips. “Extraction by Nomad was faster than driving all the way back in the kett transport we found.”

“I understand if you’d rather been treated by a doctor with more experience with angara, but you probably wouldn’t have survived the journey. You had massive internal bleeding,” Lexi added.

They gave Evfra a moment to process this information.

“Did everyone get out safe?” he asked.

“We got messages from the teams. They reached Voeld base without problems,” Jaal was ready to report.

Evfra closed his eyes for a moment that stretched so long that Jaal wondered if he’d fallen unconscious once more, but eventually he forced himself with some visible exertion to open his eyes again. With his free hand, he lifted the white blanket that covered him to frown at the bandages around his middle.

“I had to perform emergency surgery,” Lexi said. “You will have a few new scars.”

“I’m not dead,” he noted. “You must have done well, considering how few chances you’ve had to treat angara up to now.”

“I can’t take all of the credit, although I will have some. Jaal gave me the contact information of your Resistance HQ doctor. It was the first time I performed an operation with a partner over vidcom. Quite adventurous.”

“Olvek,” Evfra said, more to himself, taking a deep breath. “Either way, you have my thanks.”

Lexi held out her hand to Evfra.

“I do hope I’ve done a passable job. Can you tell me how many fingers I’m holding up?”

“Five. Five fingers _is_ the correct number for your people, right?” Evfra asked tiredly.

She smiled. “Yes. Here, take this.”

From a shelf, she collected a brightly coloured ball made out of some soft material and placed it into Evfra’s hand.

“Squeeze it as hard as you can.”

Scrunching up his face, Evfra did. Jaal watched the material give until Evfra breathed out and released his grip.

“Good, that’s enough.” She took the ball back. “You’re doing very well, considering. I didn’t expect you to speak for another day or so.” She lifted her gaze to Jaal’s face. “You can go get some sleep now.”

“I don’t want to leave,” Jaal said, holding on to Evfra’s hand. Evfra had just come back to him!

“Knowing you, you’ve been up for however long it took to put me back together. Listen to the doctor,” Evfra said.

“Now that’s the kind of patient I like,” Lexi muttered, wandering back to her desk.

“I’m going to be alright,” Evfra added, looking up at Jaal’s miserable expression. “I’ve come back from worse than this. I won’t be able to keep my eyes open, anyway.”

Jaal knew that Evfra and Lexi were right and that the only reason they were trying to get him to go to bed was because they wanted him to be well, but it didn’t make leaving Evfra any easier.

“Come, six hours of sleep, lieutenant, no more arguments,” Evfra murmured.

“If you say so,” Jaal relented. “Lexi, you must call me if...”

“Of course. Now get some sleep before I have to accommodate you in the bed next to him.”

She gave him a friendly smile and a resolute pat on the back with which she pushed him towards the door.

-

As much as Jaal had resisted, after a whole day awake and with his bones aching from the fight, he did enjoy a brief, hot shower to wash off the blood and grime and slept like a stone afterwards, though he was clutching his uni-device as he did so. The alarm clock made him sit up fast enough to knock his head against the bunk over him, his clouded mind convinced it had to be a notification from Lexi. As he blinked through his sleep-addled shock, he saw Vetra looking at him from where she stood by the staff notification terminal.

“You alright?” she asked, slightly bemused.

“I just... no, everything is fine.”

Vetra wouldn’t have sounded like that if it weren’t. They would have told him. Jaal smiled.

“I hear your friend pulled through.”

“He’s tough,” Jaal said, putting his rofjinn on. He had slept in his suit. “I should go. I...”

“Yeah, yeah. Run.”

She chuckled as Jaal hurried out of the room. A hallway was all that separated him from the med bay. As the doors opened before him, he saw that Lexi had raised the front of Evfra’s bed a little, allowing him to sit.

“Do you also use ionisation technology?” he was just asking.

“Not usually. It doesn’t do much for our species,” Lexi answered. “We installed some updates in case Jaal got hurt. Also, after we had the Moshae on board, I got worried that we would play emergency transport for other wounded angara and I wouldn’t have the right technology to treat them. It seems I wasn’t worrying for nothing.”

“That was good foresight,” Evfra said, raising his eyes to meet Jaal’s.

Lexi turned as well.

“Good, my nurse is here,” she said laconically, but Jaal only took her teasing with a smile. He was much too happy to see Evfra looking if not well, at least awake. “I wanted to take a break myself. I don’t think Evfra really needs surveillance anymore, your medigel equivalent is quite potent in knitting tissue back together. Still, I have a feeling you’ll be here, anyway.”

“Yes. Sleep well, Lexi. Thank you for all you’ve done.”

“It’s my job,” she said, but she looked pleased anyway as she walked out of the room.

Jaal pulled up the chair next to Evfra’s bed again.

“Sorry, I don’t think I was very subtle about us. When you broke down in my arms, I couldn’t...”

“It’s fine,” Evfra said.

Jaal waited for the excuse Evfra would make for the situation, but there didn’t seem to be one forthcoming. Evfra looked at the ceiling.

“Jaal,” he began, very slowly, when Jaal hadn’t expected him to say anything anymore, “when I sent the signal, I was sure I wasn’t going to make it. I’d blocked the door, but I knew they would get in eventually, it was really just so I could send the distress call without interruption.”

Jaal had come too close to losing him today not to flinch at that. He placed his hand on Evfra’s shoulder, waiting for him to gather his breath.

“But when I sat slumped against that damn kett console and looked at my own blood running over my hands, I realised... I didn’t want to die.”

“That seems – normal,” Jaal said, unsure, after turning the words in his head to discover their meaning.

“Yes and no,” Evfra said, turning to look at him. “I’ve never considered suicide. I always knew I was too stubborn to let the kett win like that. But ever since they took my family, I never feared death. I didn’t like that it would have taken me from my tasks with the Resistance, but that was all.” His voice was still unusually quiet, but he spoke with conviction. “I don’t know what happens when you die, if you’re reborn, or go to some other plane, or maybe nothing at all, but it would mean being in the same place as my children and my husband, my family. It didn’t matter so much where that was, so why would I be afraid?”

Jaal wanted to put his arms around Evfra, but he didn’t know if that could disturb the wounds, so he just sat there, wondering where Evfra was going.

“This time, though, it felt like... not everyone I wanted to be with was dead. It’s selfish to want to get a second chance when they can’t. I still love my family, I always will. But I realised I didn’t want to miss the life I could have with you.”

Evfra had folded his hands in his lap, but he stretched out one now to take Jaal’s hand and pull it towards himself.

“So I don’t care if your friends know or even if the whole damn Resistance does. If you still want to...”

Jaal interrupted him with a kiss, long and slow, the kind he had wanted to give him for weeks now. Evfra put a hand on the back of Jaal’s head.

“I love you,” Jaal said because there seemed to be no room for anything else in his head.

“And I you,” Evfra answered calmly, as if it was something he had known for a very long time.

Jaal nuzzled against the side of his head, allowing all the fear and anger to flow out of him, with Evfra’s hand still gently petting along the ridges that went down his neck.

“I thought when we talked about Akksul, you were about to throw me out,” Jaal said, after a long moment, with a small smile. “It scared me. And when I heard that the kett hat taken you...” He did not have words for that. “I do not want to go on without you now. I think we belong together.”

“I overreacted,” Evfra admitted. “Which doesn’t mean I like what you did, but – it was your risk to take and you did it for a good reason. Although I think maybe you now have a more intimate understanding of why I got angry.”

“I think I can live without another lesson like that,” Jaal said with a pained smile.

-

“I’ll return to Aya as soon as we can get there, likely by this evening,” Evfra said. Though he steadied himself with one hand on the edge of the conference table, it was barely noticeable that he really needed it to stand.

“It’ll be good to have you back, Evfra.”

“Never thought I’d see you so happy to have me returned to your city,” Evfra said dryly.

“It gets strangely quiet in my office if you don’t come in to complain about something every day,” Paaran shot back.

Evfra raised a brow at her, but Jaal could see he was not truly displeased. He had seen the two of them rile each other up in earnest before and there was a different timbre to their voices then. Even in those moments, though, there was never true animosity between them. If there were, Aya’s society would probably have fallen apart by now.

“We’ll talk more later, Paaran. Stay strong and clear.”

“Stay strong and clear,” she answered before her image flickered out of existence.

Evfra pushed himself off the table, taking a moment to steady himself.

“Do you want a hand?” Jaal asked.

Evfra made an undefined noise, something that may have been a clearer agreement if not for pride.

“Dr. T’Perro doesn’t agree with me being out of bed after three days, but I can’t wait forever. I’m officially allowed to eat solid food again, however. Would you care to join me?”

“Of course.”

Evfra kept a hand on Jaal’s arm as they moved slowly down the hallway from the conference room. They took the elevator to the lower part of the ship, since even Evfra did not overestimate himself enough to take on a rung ladder in this state. In the kitchen, they ran into Liam having a private dispute with the coffee machine. When he saw the two of them, he grinned.

“Hey.”

Evfra nodded at him, releasing Jaal so he could get the food paste out of the cupboards. Out of the corner of his eyes, Jaal saw Liam give Evfra an interested look.

“I know you don’t really talk about being in pain and all that, but is it rude if I ask you how you are?”

“Probably,” Evfra said flatly, “but most of us don’t employ manners above reason. You won’t get in trouble enquiring about a fellow soldier who broke down on the battlefield. I’m fine, considering circumstances. Dr. T’Perro tells me I got very lucky, but her skill has more to do with it.”

Liam looked pleased.

“That’s great.” He glanced at Jaal. “Hey, are you gonna stay on Aya with Evfra? I mean, since you guys...”

“No, Jaal needs to finish this mission,” Evfra answered. “I can see he’s become an important part of this team. I wouldn’t want to pull people from the Pathfinder in a situation like this.”

Jaal nodded his head. Though he didn’t like leaving Evfra behind in this state, this was perhaps the most important mission he would ever be part of and abandoning it so close before the finish would have felt wrong. Granted, it helped that he was delivering Evfra to Aya, by far the safest of the angaran homeworlds.

“That’s great. We don’t wanna miss Jaal, either. Although if we manage this, you’re probably going to ask for some shore leave after, huh, Jaal?”

“‘Shore leave’?” Evfra asked.

“It’s a human expression,” Liam said.

“It means a holiday from military service,” Jaal interjected, grabbing two spoons for their food and smiling at the surprise on Liam’s face. “Cora explained that to me.”

Liam laughed.

“Diplomacy’s finally working,” he said.

-

They had dinner in Jaal’s quarters. Usually he wouldn’t have minded to eat in the kitchen, but considering he only had a few more hours with Evfra, he wanted to steal him for himself now. Evfra had just finished telling him about the changes he intended to make to the Voeld intel distribution structure as a result of their experience when all the talk of data reminded Jaal of something.

“I have something for you,” he said, getting up.

Evfra cocked his head in a silent question as Jaal walked over to one of the clusters of mechanical parts strewn about the room.

“Give me your hand...”

He took Evfra’s wrist and let the latch of the thin metal band he had collected snap shut around his arm. Then, he pressed a button. An orange uni-device display flickered alive over Evfra’s arm, projecting text in a local Voeld dialect.

“You actually did fix it,” Evfra said, baffled, scrolling through the interface that had seemed unwieldy to Jaal, but that Evfra navigated with the habitual easy of muscle memory.

“I told you I could do it,” Jaal said, feeling unnecessarily proud.

“I guess I’ll spend the time Olvek forces me to rest transferring data,” Evfra said, swiping his finger down a nest of menus.

“You’ll actually use it?”

“If it works, of course. I like this one much better. Unless it’s more for show and I shouldn’t carry it around.”

“No, it should work like any other uni-device.”

Jaal looked at the band around his arm and smiled. He knew it was sentimental, but he liked that Evfra might briefly think of him whenever he looked down at wrist, even for the time they would spend separated now. A refitted bootleg uni-device was not exactly the sort of present you’d give a normal lover to remember you by, but it was the most personal thing he could truly make himself and he had a feeling it was just to Evfra’s taste.


	14. Chapter 14

How did Meridian look so much like a sun shone down on it, Jaal wondered, as he stepped outside into the light. The sky was artificial and yet he felt all his energy receptors flare up like he had walked into the full beam of a bright, clear day on Havarl. With one hand, he wiped away blood that was running into his eyes from a laceration on his forehead and saw Lexi hurry towards the Pathfinder’s sister, who, exhausted but chuckling at something Ryder had said, allowed herself to be handed over to the doctor. In the crowd stood some of his own siblings and cousins among other soldiers of the Resistance, bleeding, scuffed, with dented armour and smiles on their faces. Next to him, the Pathfinder took Peebee’s hand and Jaal found himself looking for his own love.

Evfra was bracketed by the Moshae and the other Pathfinders. Jaal had seen him only in passing, fighting alongside the Resistance and Reyes to cover their approach to the Archon’s base, and they hadn’t had time to exchange more than a nod as Jaal barrelled after the Pathfinder for the Archon’s hideout.

But they were all here now, with the Archon dead and the bright sky of Meridian lighting up a beautiful land of green. Jaal took a moment to appreciate the sight of Evfra on a world so wholly untouched by the deterioration of Remnant vaults and the destruction of the kett. It seemed unreal, like an image remembered from a daydream.

He stepped forward towards him, took Evfra’s face in his hands and kissed him on the mouth.

They had talked about making their relationship public when all of this was over. Granted, he was sure Evfra had had something more formal and quiet in mind, but why overthink it? They were lucky to be alive. Jaal wanted to enjoy the moment and Evfra did not turn his head.

Finally, after long, precious seconds, he did push against Jaal’s chest, though, urging him a step away.

“At ease, lieutenant,” he said, sarcasm clear in his voice as he chose that military term that so obviously had no place in their relationship anymore.

Jaal laughed at the slight blue blush on Evfra’s cheeks and the stunned looks on the faces of every angara in the crowd.

It was a new day.

-

“Evfra!”

Liam had spotted him before Jaal did. He was standing by the Moshae’s side, talking quietly to her, Director Tann and Addison, probably discussing her new role as the ambassador. However, he allowed himself to be distracted by the call. With a brief nod to them, he turned and joined Ryder’s crew on the balcony. 

“What is it?” he asked.

“You should stay with us for a bit. It’s a party, we wanted to have a toast.”

“I’m not one of your crew.”

“No, but you’ve been on our ship. It counts,” Liam said good-naturedly.

“Besides, we’d have to tie Jaal down to stay with us and drink more if you sit in another corner,” Peebee teased, looking at Jaal.

“We haven’t had a chance to see each other yet,” Jaal said, without shame. Of course he was eager to spend some time with Evfra! He had been exceptionally busy after the crash-landing of the Hyperion on Meridian. Evfra had used the frantic kett activity that had followed the loss of the Archon to launch counter-attacks against the disorganised leftovers wherever possible. Jaal understood this was necessary, but that didn’t make it easier to stay separated.

While they talked, Ryder had actually managed to put a glass in Evfra’s hand.

“To Andromeda,” he said. “To Meridian. To all of us.”

They raised their glasses and Evfra, looking around him, imitated the gesture, though a little less enthusiastically.

“A human custom,” Jaal explained after taking a sip.

Evfra frowned at the contents in his glass.

“Seems like every culture’s habits surrounding alcohol are silly. I suppose most of them were invented under heavy influence.”

Jaal chuckled, craning his neck as he listened. The balcony overlooked a wide meadow, with trees so high they seemed to want to touch the synthetic sky above and a tapestry of flowers covering the grass in colourful dots.

“If we follow Meridian’s map and reactivate the vaults, we’ll have many other words like this,” Jaal said with a thoughtful smile as he stepped up to the balustrade. Evfra joined him.

“Hopefully. Maybe some of them are a bit cooler.”

“If we live together, you’re not going to make me move to some snowy desert, are you?”

“Undecided,” Evfra said with a hint of a smile. “To be honest, I doubt I’ll get off Aya until I die.”

“Aya is not so bad,” Jaal said before he kissed him.

Evfra let the touch of their lips linger for a bit before he spoke again.

“It can be in parts. You’re right, too many bureaucrats.”

“As long as you’re there, I can deal with them,” Jaal answered.

Evfra took another sip of his drink.

“My true mother wants to meet you,” Jaal said after a moment of comfortable silence.

“Oh, has she heard about our kiss? I wonder how, it was only half your family looking on,” Evfra drawled.

Jaal laughed. He knew what Evfra looked like angry and this was not it.

“Besides, your mother does know me. She’s in the Resistance.”

“Not as my partner. There’s new questions to be asked.” He cleared his throat. “I... hope you don’t mind hearing about the wonders of adoption too much,” he added with an apologetic smile.

Evfra shook his head.

“That’s what you get with angaran families,” he said, shrugging. “And I assume you and your mother don’t disagree on that point.”

“I, well... I am a typical angara in that fashion,” Jaal admitted. He understood if the topic was raw for Evfra since he had lost his children, though.

“I know that and I did say I wanted a future with you. I didn’t mean to rob you of your ideas for what that might entail, either.” He snorted. “Besides, I don’t want to start a fight with your true mother. From what I have seen of her over the years, it’s not a good idea.”

Jaal felt his heart beating fast even as he chuckled. This was so much more than he had dared hope for.

“Jaal,” Evfra said, suddenly, “I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?” Jaal asked, looking at him in surprise.

“Waiting for me. I know it’s not a matter of course.”

“I’m just happy you caught up,” Jaal said, gently bumping against Evfra’s shoulder with his own. Together, they looked out over the new world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! I don't have anything new ready right away, but I also doubt this is the last I'll ever write about my favourite catsquids, so maybe I'll see you around for another fanfic sometime.


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